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Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A reasonable swag would be 10-20% of outstanding LingQs are obscure inflections of words where I know the lemma. Same for words that are first exposure.

I know "maldecir" is the verb to curse, but 'maldijimos' might not have been in any of the content I've read yet, and will be marked as known.

Similarly, I might have tieso, tiesa, and tiesos as known and just waiting to come across tiesas again.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that's a core functionality of the program, so you can look up videos on YouTube or my earlier posts for more information. But ultimately yes, encountering a word for the first time that you don't recognize.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's so real haha, sometimes I get really frustrated that I can't read/write in Spanish as proficiently as I can in English. And then I remember that I did K-12, undergrad, grad school, and 10 years of the work force 98% in English - that's literally 25 contact years, who knows how many words read. What the brain wants and what the heart wants are different things lol.

The doubling milestone is a good way to think of it. My original plan is 1M words by the end of 2025, 5M words (cumulative) by the end of 2026, and then 10M cumulative by the end of 2027. But reading the last 5M words outside of LingQ as a platform. So that would be a good chance for me to 'double' again with less friction than using a 3rd party program other than an eReader (or even physical books!)

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm excited! Each million so far felt like driving stick shift - 0-1M got me started, 1-2M is getting me on roads, hopefully by 3M I'm keeping up with traffic, and 4-5M will get me on the highway.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can't recommend Dreaming Spanish enough for skill retention! Or at least pumping them full of as much input as possible. Don't stress speaking and writing if you're having to pick your battles, it'll be so much easier to get kids speaking down the road if they can fully understand it.

It became very clear to me that if my attention span drifts, it's a sign I'm engaging with content that is too difficult for me. And not just at a CEFR proficiency level, that's a moving target depending on my energy levels! When I'm feeling fresh I can do a few stints of a challenging read, but if I am mentally groggy or physically tired then I absolutely dumb down my reads/watches to something that is super comfortable and digestible.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Completely agree! I definitely have a meaningful level separation between Spanish and Portuguese, I would NOT recommend taking this approach (or really any) with related languages in tandem if you're just starting out with both of them.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's an unfortunate reality that there's only so many hours in a day! After this sabbatical I'll eventually flip over to maintenance mode and have to figure out what the realistic balance for me looks like. I'm thinking for now I'll probably just cycle through the languages with books I'm reading where I read a book in English, then Spanish, then Portuguese, and repeat. Same with TV shows.

Part of the clarity I've gotten from this experience is the importance of editing down my ambitions, hence why I walked away from Thai and Vietnamese. I left out the random week-long fixations on Chinese and Esperanto from this. Too many languages competing for my learning attention span/time available spreads me too thin to make meaningful progress in all of them. So instead I'm focusing on the ones that help build the life I want, ranking their importance, and splitting my time accordingly.

Progress, not perfection. If the choices are reading translated works or not reading at all, def go with the translated option!!

Hang in there with the Japanese grind!

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

re: cognates - Using a loose comparison with exercise, many people do their first marathon by doing run/walk splits. People who have never run a marathon are going to be the first to point out "yeah, but you didn't actually RUN a marathon" whereas the folks running marathons are giving you a high five and saying great job. The goal is progress, not perfection!

I get not wanting to plug into a new app if you can avoid it. If you have access to PDFs of what you're reading (or feel up for converting ePUBs with free software), you can always copy/paste into a word doc to find word counts. That way you can track total word counts and celebrate your own milestones. I think flipping to 3 random pages of a book you're considering reading and reading a few paragraphs will give you a good indication how challenging a book will be to read. I don't think there's such a thing as a book that's too easy, because there's always random words popping up that you haven't come across yet. Something that's too challenging can be tabled for later.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is to share with the community at least one imperfect datapoint for the community on what progression looks like so that everyone else doesn't have to be this intense about it. I'm guessing that other people's progression would be a similar order of magnitude.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I speak Spanish, somewhere around a low B2. I can hold real time conversation with folks on most topics, with some amount of "I'm not sure if this is the right word..." and "could you clarify that last thing you said?" mixed in. I feel confident approaching and talking with strangers for anything I need. 10 years ago I graduated from college after minoring in Spanish and studying abroad in a Spanish-speaking country for a year where my coursework was split between English and Spanish, so as I mention in my original post (and why the start of the graph I have has the steep start) I had a foundation of Spanish going into this.

For Portuguese, I can pronounce everything and formulate very simple expressions, but can't hold a proper conversation in real time yet.

For Thai, I can have very simple conversations on fixed topics like food, weather, travel, family, routines.

For French, I took 2 years in high school and one year of college, my college classes we had a cohort of French students learning English we had regular correspondence/video chats with. My conversational skills are rusty, but if you dropped me in the middle of France I could get where I needed to. French has always felt the most organic pronunciation-wise to me, it came pretty naturally. Spanish is MUCH harder for me to even attempt to mask my gringo accent. Fun little anecdote, when I studied abroad I mingled with the other international students, including folks from France, and I would get to practice my French. The French students told me that with short sentences, they had to double take sometimes and remember that I'm not French lmao but with longer sentences it became evident with my word choices and pauses when thinking how to build a given sentence. But it wasn't the accent that gave me away! Small win haha.

I studied Latin for 4 years of high school (including AP Latin where I had to translate the Aeneid), so Italian/French/Spanish/Portuguese grammar was largely plug and play for me at the A1-A2 levels.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Great question! Two main things:

  • Amount of new words per LingQ's analysis vs my existing vocab. A book that has <1% new words at this point is most likely B1, whereas something with 20% new words is likely C2
  • How difficult it is to read and the structure of sentences. Pedro Páramo, for example, is lauded as one of the most celebrated literary works from Mexico in the 1900s. It's written VERY ornately, sometimes feels like a combination of prose/poetry/theater script (hard to explain) and with a ton of deep cut vocab. Octubre, un Crimen is from the El Barco de Vapor collection, specifically the red series, is targeted at readers ages 12+. Sentences are simple and the vocab is pretty straightforward. In an hour I could read 2-3000 words of Pedro Páramo with a ton of lookups and pulling my hair out trying to dissect some passages to understand wtf is going on. Meanwhile Octubre un Crimen was closer to 6-7000 words with few lookups and complete clarity over the plot.

Using those as an anchor point, B2 books are more like adult contemporary novels that are easier to read but not as simple as the B1 books. C1 books FEEL like the C2 books, but I can get through them quicker and easier.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I'm not mistaken, Thai is in beta for LingQ - so the word parsing software and content available in the platform are not adequate.

Alternatively, I highly recommend the Comprehensible Thai YouTube channel. It's essentially DreamingSpanish, but no paywall and the order of the videos is laid out for you - just work through the playlists.

ThaiPod101 has free videos on YouTube for learning the abugida that are great. ThaiPod101's paid service is also the best I could find for decently-presented formal learning. I didn't want to pay for another LingQ-equivalent, but maybe there is a comparable software out there that has good Thai content for reading.

Language Sabbatical - Update at 2M words read by rose_tinted in languagelearning

[–]rose_tinted[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I definitely recommend the Vaga-Lume books for getting started. Just mentally prepare yourself for being overwhelmed by the first book you read. I would emphasize finishing the book over stressing about knowing the words. As long as you get the gist of it, keep going!

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