Since many years, I keep a list (database) on my computer of the books I read (or listen to, as I do much of my reading via audio books nowadays). I probably sometimes forget or leave out some (for example when listening again to old favourites in between other books). But usually I seem to end up with an average of about one book per week - and 2019 again seems to have been a pretty average reading year for me: 51 titles listed. (As for which ones also get mentioned here on my blog, that really depends more on my own inspiration to write, rather than on the book!)
Languages
Every now and then I also try to sum up my language learning progress on Duolingo. This year, in mid December, I got an email from Duo himself (the little green owl, see image) to celebrate my achievements in 2019. Besides confirming that I'd been practicing every day (which I knew), it says that (over 351 days) I spent a total of 156 hours learning, completed 2340 lessons, and learned 8190 words (!)
As for the number of words, I suspect it depends on how you interpret the word "learn". Considering how many different languages I've been juggling, I don't doubt that from their point of view, they did throw 8190 new words at me... However, how many of those were words that I already knew, vs how many truly new ones stuck in my memory, is probably a different story. I also find the number of lessons surprisingly high, compared to the number of hours. But it may have something to do with my having "tested out" of some lessons in some languages (German, French, Danish, Norwegian). But never mind: I think I can still safely say that I've kept making some progress...
The language I'm primarily working on is still Spanish (slowly but steadily...) I've also been trying to better my French, and update my German (after all, society has seen some changes since my school & university days). With lower ambitions, I've also been continuing with Dutch, Welsh, Turkish and Russian. Ranked in Duolingo points (XP), my list currently looks like this:
Spanish - 51987, German - 22455, French - 20690
Dutch - 19670, Welsh - 15545, Turkish - 15090
Russian - 13191, Danish - 8773, Norwegian -7111
Swahili - 1348, Latin - 918, Scottish Gaelic -157
The last three are recent courses that I added out of curiosity... Swahili because it's "different" but still uses our alphabet. Gaelic to see how it compares to Welsh. (Seem to differ more than I thought.) Latin because I took Latin for two years back in secondary school (nearly 50 years ago) - but usually don't talk about this (shh!), as someone might then get misled to believe I actually know it... The Duo take on it seems to be to treat it like any other [modern] language (rather than jumping straight in to old quotes and tons of grammar). I may give it a few more lessons, and see how it goes...
8 comments:
You are a brain, for sure!! The older I get, the less I can retain. When I was a young mom, I read one book a day! Now the computer has kind of taken over my life.
I'd love to do thhis, too! Russian and Arabic have been high on my list of languages I would like to learn.
you remember I tried to learn a few words of Spanish and did so poorly I gave up. you have a knack for learning and also the desire and perseverance... those statistics amaze me. good job. just think what you can learn in 2020.... Happy New Year
wow you're very intelligent, I tried learning French at high school but failed miserably.
Ginny, that just means you've switched to Artificial Intelligence... ;) (Just kidding. There's still quite a lot of human brain activty involved in learning to use the computer in the first place!)
Meike, I doubt I'll ever get round to seriously trying Arabic (or Chinese or Japanese or any of "those" languages). The Russian alphabet is giving me enough headache ;)
Sandra, I think the main thing about brain exercise (just as with physical activity) is probably to find "your own" thing... :) Happy New Year!
Amy, we're all good at different things... And in school the teaching and teaching methods may also play their part. French was my second foreign language in school (English the first) but I gave it up later to continue with German instead, which felt more useful to me. I also kind of lost interest in French (in school, back in the 70s) because of a male teacher who was obsessed with les femmes et le vin, while the French grammar seemed to get worse the more I learned!
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