Listen and Learn...

 

King Arthur - 12 h. * The Old Testament - 12 h.
C.S. Lewis - 6 h. * Mythologies of the world - 31 h.

I have listened to a few Great Courses from Audible in the past as well, then mostly to do with languages (Language Families of the World, The Story of Human Language). Recently I noticed that a whole lot more Great Courses about all kinds of topics are now included in my membership (i.e. free for members to listen to without using monthly credits to buy them for keeps). The above are what I've been listening to (or more correctly, have often been half asleep to) during November. While I don't expect a lot of details to stick in my memory, I'd like to think that I may still have added a little bit to my general understanding of the contexts in which those details belong. Like: how various cultures across the world (and across Time) share a surprising amount of stories with common or very similar themes, even if characters (both humans and gods) may have different names and the stories may even serve different purposes. Mythologies I'm only half way through yet - 18 hours left, and if memory serves me right I'm just about to dive into African mythology, which I don't think I've ever heard very much about at all.

(Decided to put this on the blog today because it's been an exceptionally grey and wet and gloomy day when I've not set foot outside. Needed to remind myself that I've actually not spent all of November just re-watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix for the umpteenth time (however much I also love doing that).

 

 

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!