Versary Updates

I celebrated two (anni)versaries in the month of May that I did not get round to blogging about at the time. 

 May 15th was my 10th Postcrossing-versary.

 

• What is Postcrossing?

  The goal of this project is to allow anyone to send and receive postcards from all over the world!

  The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive one back from a random postcrosser from somewhere in the world.

 

When I joined Postcrossing, in 2013, that was a couple of years after my dad died. He used to collect stamps; but in his later years (with increasing dementia) he lost control of the "collecting". When going through his study I kept finding envelopes both here and there of fairly recent stamps that he had bought (he subscribed to new issues) but never opened. Around the same time, I heard about Postcrossing from fellow bloggers. Not being a  collector myself, I decided the most fun I'd have with the stamps (still good for use) would be to send them out into the world, which was what they were made for in the first place. So that's what got me started - not really considering at the time, I have to admit, that instead of one box of unused stamps, I'd end up with a collection of postcards (and more than one box!) instead... Ehrmmm... 

Having used up all those old "free" stamps of higher value - and with postage having become increasingly expensive in later years - I've cut down a lot on my participation since the first years, though. Luckily the system makes it fairly easy to keep one's own pace. (Stop sending, and you won't be receiving either.)

16th May was my 7th Duoversary (Duolingo.com)

These figures I assume to include all the languages I've have a look at via Duolingo. Those of you who have been following me since 2016 may recall that besides Spanish, I've also been "sniffing" at several other languages - just to test my brain's capacity to deal with that. Learning Spanish has been my priority all along though, and still is. All these seven years, I've been doing at least one daily lesson of Spanish - which means 2564 days in a row, today. (I'm still finding it very hard to follow spoken Spanish though, because they really do tend to talk so very fast!)

Two other languages that I think I also started on (from scratch) already back in 2016 were Welsh and Turkish. (Just to test my capacity for learning multiple languages at the same time.) I've gradually given up on both of those, though - the grammar got too complicated, and it's also hard to memorize words when a language is too different from those more familiar to you of old. Occasionally I go back and practice some beginners' lessons, but I've given up on moving forward. And the same with Russian. I feel more comfortable to continue a bit further with Dutch, but my ambition there was always only to increase my understanding, not to speak/write (it's too much like German, which I know since school/university back in my youth - so German tends to take over in my head as soon as it comes to actually trying to construct a sentence etc). But because Dutch comes across to me as a kind of mix of German, English and the Scandinavian languages, through Duolingo I feel I have learned to decipher it better than I used to. 

I've always liked languages so I'm still just learning/practicing for fun, rather than for any specific goal. I'm hoping it's good brain exercise, though!

 

"Versaries"

 Not sure if it's a word, but I'm celebrating two different "-versaries" this week:

My 9th Postcrossing-versary...

 ... and my 6th Duolingo-versary... 

Of all the languages I've "dipped into" at Duolingo, my streak of keeping up daily lessons for 2188 days only applies to Spanish, though. It was the first language that I started to learn on Duolingo (from scratch), and it's also the language where I feel I'm still making progress.

Some of the languages on my Duo list I knew "more or less" since before (German, French, Norwegian, Danish). Others I've only really taken a "peek" at to get a rough idea what they're like. 

Besides Spanish, the ones that I put a bit of effort into are Welsh,Turkish and Dutch; and also Russian and Finnish. But with all of those I reached a certain level when it became too difficult and/or did not really feel meaningful for me to take it much further. But it happens that I revisit occasionally to rehearse some words/grammar already learned. 

Dutch somehow falls into a category of its own: Because it resembles other languages I know (like a mix of German, Scandinavian and English), I felt I reached a fairly good level of understanding (in writing); but when it comes to "using" it (writing/speaking), my brain tends to switch to German. And not wanting to mess up my German, I'll leave it at that. 

Right from start, the whole thing with trying to learn Spanish, and then adding even more foreign languages to the mix as well, was really just an experiment - to see what my brain could cope with, at age 60+. On the whole, I'd say it's gone better than I expected! But it also taught me (no surprise) that I do better with the languages where I can relate to words and grammar from other languages already familiar to me since before. But if too much alike, that causes problems too!

At the bottom of my list (below) you'll find Ukrainian, just recently added. I have no ambition of "learning" it, just wanted to check how it differs from Russian. (I sometimes recognize a word here and there when I hear it on TV.)

 

 

Celebrating 5 Years with Duolingo

 

I'm celebrating 5 years of daily Spanish lessons at Duolingo.com

(Spanish)

You who have followed me through these five years know that along the way, I have also dipped into several other languages - some for repetition (German, French), some because they were already somewhat familiar (Norwegian, Danish, Dutch); and some just as a challenge to see how the brain would cope with something totally different (Welsh, Turkish, Russian). My latest addition to the last group is Finnish, which was introduced on Duolingo last summer. (Although Finland is a neighbouring country, Finnish is of totally different structure/origin than Swedish.) While I'm unlikely to ever learn enough of any of those last four languages to be of much use in direct communication, I still feel it's taught me a fair bit about languages in general. And I do feel rather proud of myself for having kept up my "streak" of daily Spanish lessons (+ more) through five whole years now . I would not have dared guess that when I started!

Another Anniversary! - 4 Years of Duolingo

Having posted about my 7 years of Postcrossing yesterday, it struck me that it's also time to celebrate 4 years of language learning via Duolingo. 

I'm not sure if Duo too will be sending me a special reminder; but tomorrow my 'streak' on that app will be 1460 days = 4x365 = 4 years. Also confirmed by a blog post of mine from May 2016, On Learning Languages. 

How time flies when you're having fun! (...and especially in the company of an encouraging little green owl to flatter your ego every time you manage to get something right...)

As followers may remember, I have been reporting my progress and statistics on this blog every now and then over the years. As the app and courses keep developing along the way, I realize that progress is hard to measure and compare in figures, though. Some courses are a lot more comprehensive than others, and so on. And my own ambitions with the languages I've tried also vary a lot.

The first language I started learning on Duo was Spanish (pretty much from scratch). That's still my priority, so I still always start with that and do at least one Spanish lesson per day to keep up my streak. 

Besides that (when I feel like doing more) I'm still also working on some more languages. For one thing, I occasionally review a bit of German and French (which I did learn in school).  'New' languages other than Spanish that I've kept working on are Welsh, Turkish, Dutch and Russian. In Spanish I'm wrestling with keeping apart verb endings expressing past, future etc. And I still can't keep up with the spoken language (like on TV), they speak way too fast! With Dutch, I can understand the written language fairly well; but writing/speaking and listening is quite a different matter (and will probably remain so). With Welsh, Turkish and Russian - while I do feel I'm making progress, and slowly learning to recognize certain patterns (and words and phrases), each lesson is really still mostly "brain exercise" (like games or crosswords or puzzles). I'm satisfied with that, though - as I'm doing it for "fun", rather than aiming to reach a certain goal or level. 

The main reason I decided to try Duolingo four years ago was  really just to check if my brain could still cope with that kind of learning at all, at age 60+. Seen from that perspective, I think I have to be pleased even just with the fact that I've kept on trying!

Pili-pala

Dw i'n mwynhau gwylio'r pili-pala (Welsh)
= "I enjoy watching the butterfly" 

On Saturday afternoon the sun came out (after having been absent for a few days). I went for a walk to my "Butterfly Park" again and was pleased to find all my familiar little friends there, enjoying the sunshine. (Where do butterflies go when it rains??) Last time I was there taking photos I saw mostly Painted Ladies, but this time the Small Tortoiseshells seemed to be in majority.

I like the Welsh word for butterfly, pili-pala (which I learned from Duolingo). I don't know the origin but to me it kind of sounds like a butterfly moves... (don't know if that makes sense to anyone else!)

Brimstone butterfly (Gonepteryx rhamni)
Swedish: Citronfjäril ('lemon' butterfly)

Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)
Swedish: Påfågelsöga ('peacock's eye')

Small Tortoiseshell (Aglais urticae)
Swedish: Nässelfjäril ('nettle' butterfly)

Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta)
Swedish: Amiralfjäril ('admiral' butterfly)

Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui, or Cynthia cardui)
Swedish: Tistelfjäril ('thistle' butterfly)

Versaries

Yesterday, I received an email reminding me that it was my 6th Postcrossingversary. Wow. How time flies when one is having fun!


 Postcrossing:

• The goal of this project is to allow anyone to send and receive postcards from all over the world! The idea is simple: for each postcard you send, you will receive one back from a random postcrosser somewhere in the world. 

• Simply because --- there are lots of people who like to receive real mail.
  Receiving postcards from different places in the world (many of which you probably have never heard of!) can turn your mailbox into a box of surprises — and who wouldn't like that?
  

On top of that, I'm also celebrating my 3rd Duolingoversary this week.

Duolingo is a language learning platform with more than 300 million users and offering around 30 different languages. It is free to use and is designed to feel like a game. The course that they have developed the furthest is Spanish; and second comes French.

Spanish was also my own first choice on Duolingo, and is still my priority there. (At least one lesson per day - often more.) However, I have also made use of Duolingo to freshen up my French and German (learned in school many years ago, long before computers and mobile phones); to improve my understanding of Danish and Norwegian (closely related to Swedish); and also to try and learn a little bit of Dutch, Turkish, Welsh and Russian. (I have also had a peek at one or two others, but decided not to proceed with those - for now, anyway!) 

With Dutch, I have come to understand it pretty well (in writing), but have decided to "stop" at that, as I don't want to mess up my German. And it's the same thing with the other new languages, really: Except for maybe Spanish, my ambitions don't really go beyond learning to understand a bit. I have a general interest in languages though, so I'm fascinated when I can just learn to recognize some words and phrases and basic structures. 

Postcrossing and learning foreign languages are of course two hobbies that go rather well together - even if the most commonly used language in postcrossing is English.

Learning more languages has also made me more interested in watching TV series or films in those languages (even if I'd still be lost without Swedish subtitles). For example I have enjoyed the Spanish series Velvet on Netflix (the setting is a Spanish fashion house in the 1950s/60s), and the Turkish series Paramparça (Broken pieces) on Swedish television. At the moment, I'm following a Jewish series on Netflix - Shtisel. (No, I don't know any Hebrew... But I'm fascinated to discover that I recognize and even understand a bit when they switch to Yiddish now and then!).