Just a bit

 I'm trying to get over a little nose congestion and have it not go to my chest.  I've had that problem all my life - Fargo was the worst with the wind and cold - but I still get it here in Tennessee once in a while, too.  Basically, I've been told, my sinuses aren't quite right but it would take a lot to make them 'right' and they probably wouldn't stay that way, so learn how to deal with it.  I eat a lot of soup and drink a lot of tea.

I made pea soup this morning with garlic and onions and clove spice, and drank it all straight down.

I've been studying Greek, trying to increase that score from 15 to 16 - and also doing Spanish-->French and French-->Spanish on my phone, and caught up on a few lessons of Russian today after watching a big cat handler's Youtube again with Esme and pointing out that I could understand some of what she was saying.  My Duolingo scores on the French-->Spanish and Spanish-->French are both sitting at 10 and 11, respectively.  My English-->French score is just hovering under 70, and I know that could be improved but the grammar is getting into 'you have to study now' territory.  I'm still using the free version, as well.  And I was surprised to see my Russian score materialize today also at 11.  They didn't have those scores back when I did the free A-level Busuu course and then caught up some practice on Duolingo. 

Found a little red photo album from my early childhood and posted a few pictures for my sister to see, and to try to figure out who the people were in them.  I was really originally looking for what the linoleum looked like in our house when I was a child - because I could remember it almost exactly.  I picked out an image on Google that I was sure was it - and when I found the picture in the album, yes, *pat on back* it was exactly the same pattern.  Those sort of things stick with you when you have a photographic memory.  I remember my mother being upset that I would trace such patterns with my fingers, and especially the mirroring in it was something I was fascinated with.  Come to discover later that patterns and dyslexia mirroring things were a big part of how my brain works - little surprise!

 

 

I was also doing my Lithuanian / Latvian vocabulary - on baba dum only Lithuanian is available and on Baltoslav both are.  I was finding it useful to look away from the screen on ba ba dum and hear the word, 'spell' it in my vision, and then look and see if the word was what I thought it was before trying to match it to the picture I also thought it should be.  BaltoSlav doesn't have pronunciation, but Google translate has gotten much better at pronouncing Latvian, and I've been watching some more Tuta's Lietas as well for that.

 Still no actual USE for these languages other than my brain works much better and less stress fully with this 'in all the boxes' than with remembering 50,000+ items in inventory per department in the hardware store I worked at.   

Christmas Eve, 9 years with the green owl

 

Oh, I've still studied twenty plus languages, but these are the top tier and I keep at them on Duolingo... not including Latvian and Lithuanian, which are not on 'the green owl'.. but I'd love it if they were added.  I had made a phone profile to force myself to do more Spanish learning (and Catalan, in Spanish) when I was not at home, so I haven't had that for the full 9 years, more like 3?  I often play the 'all languages' version on Ba Ba Dum.  It throws curveballs at me in Albanian and Greek and Turkish and Chinese etc- which I don't have as much practice in beyond basics, as well as the languages I am studying more - and it shows that my Romanian and Spanish vocabularies are very lacking, my Japanese needs work, my Czech is better than expected, and my Lithuanian and French are the best there. It is one of the two places I can practice the Lithuanian, and the other place is BaltoSlav, which has the Latvian to practice.

 It's Christmas Eve, it is 70 degrees out nearly (I am happy about that) and I'm cooking pears in butter and ginger vanilla sauce.  I'll make a cake tomorrow for it maybe.  Mark has another roast to put in the oven with beef broth and rice for tomorrow.  We will bring Grandma down for an early dinner, as she likes to eat early.

1 qt jar of water, mixed with white sugar, vanilla, a few tablespoons of butter and good powdered ginger.  Brown sugar put over the peeled and halved pears with seeds scooped out.  Heat up the quart jar mixture in microwave, pour over the pan of brown sugared pears, then put in oven at 275 (because Mark had a roast in there already) for a few hours, turning every ten to fifteen minutes.  Save all the liquid - it is excellent syrup!

 I even had to go get some more pears - because they are good.  The greenish ones I've put in the freezer for making something else, after washing and cutting them up into chunks.  I bought some gouda cheese to go with it, and more mozzarella which we usually have.

 

The Christmas Tree is ready, with a few things for everyone under it.

I caught up on the Greek and Japanese today, after doing Catalan and Romanian for much of the week.  Now to do some laundry and cleaning.  Mark said the chickens were checking their wristwatches this morning as I had slept in, but I said no they were checking their 'roost watches'.  
 

 I had asked for some spices this year - and this one was one I didn't put under the tree.  Someone had brought it to work for a cookout months ago and I've been looking to see what store around here carried it ever since.  It is excellent with avocado, just as a topping!

language bit

 

 

 

I got a little too enthused about the new 'level' assigned in Duolingo.  Although, they've had something like this before, and I've been doing this on this profile since 2017.  I started in French (my L2 from grandmother) and German (my high school required language) and Welsh (pure interest).  I am in the fifth section on French, and nearly finished the Welsh entirely twice now before they added more to it.  

 

I was quite pleased though to see that Czech and Romanian were still so high up there, at 22 and 19.  I focused on them at one time and can still do quite a bit when I switch over to them, but would not call myself fluent enough to even read a kid's book..  My biggest problem with them (and with Welsh, sometimes) is that I forget how to spell things properly when I've been away for too long.  I've been working on Japanese for a while, and it still is only at 21!  But then, I did a LOT of work on Spanish, hit my head against the wall on it for months doing only Spanish and hitting it hard - and after all that work then and all the work since, that is only at 11.  I am well into the middle of the second section of it, but it still doesn't come naturally to me.  Catalan comes more naturally to me than Spanish, but it would, being sort of between French and Spanish.

 

I deduct that it has to be based on how many lessons are actually available for that language - and the percentage of them that I've done.  There are way more lessons available for French and Spanish than any of the others except maybe Portuguese (I read that somewhere). 

All of this because I switched over to French after some of the verb conjugations were going through my head at lunch the other day.

 Probably going to get the little car back tomorrow, it will be expensive, and hope the fix 'sticks' - but will have to make excuses to drive it and that will be a bit difficult when it has fallen over in the past.  The newer vehicle is doing everything it should be doing but the whole reason for having a backup vehicle is exactly what happened when we just had the little car by itself and then it began to have problems. 

am a tro, what a day

 Last night when I was actually getting ready to go to bed (at 7:30, because I was already overtired and hoping to sleep well) the mechanic called and said to bring the car down to get the window fixed.  So, we did... and then this morning we went to town to get lumber and groceries.  I did make myself a good egg omelet with seaweed and arugula and hot peppers, hot pepper cheese and spices.  I feel I haven't been eating very well the last two months but it could be worse... and I have been feeling more absentminded, which I hope is from being overtired and not having as much free time to do the things I was used to doing.   And I played with a few language lessons this afternoon and then some more Sims (which, I'm still on the fence if that is any good for me...it sucks up time and I still wonder if I could get more out of baking or making lunch for the next day or this or that...) and then the mechanic called again and said the window was fixed and to come get the car.  So, we did...  that cost a bit more than I expected, but at least it's done.  After that, made dinner and did laundry and am getting ready to go to bed early again tonight to get up early tomorrow.  Am a tro, what a day, and that is a day 'off'....  

 I studied some Latvian today as well as the Japanese.   I felt proud of myself when I did the 'phone numbers' Latvian lesson where you listen to the string of numbers being read off and either put them in as you hear them or correct a series of questions where the number is written down incorrectly.  Both were hard in their own way, especially since I didn't review the numbers from my last bout with the language months ago and just dove in.  'Nola' is zero, by the way - that was the only one I couldn't sort after hearing them again for the first time in months.  Some of the numbers are almost the same as in many other Indo-European languages, but the word for eight is unique.  The teen numbers remind me of Czech, not the same words, but a similar form - but then, the 'teen' in all of the English ones is a similar relatable pattern that I don't think of easily, because I'm just too used to it.

I played with the Bern Istaba, a Latvian children's website to see if I could remember a lot of the basic words I learned there.  It was a good review, as well.

Did some more of the yomu yomu Japanese story app that reads the story to you while you read the text on the screen (in Japanese hiragana/kanji) and the subtitles (in English) side by side.  Sort of like a dual-language reader, which I had a few of back when (high school / college), in German as paperback books.   I like that quite a bit... am wondering if the language is 'stilted' vs what a real Japanese story would be to make it simpler for beginners.  It was quite repetitive.. which seemed unnatural - but I understood 75% of it and learned some new words with every chapter.  That's the sweet spot.

I browsed around the internet a little to look at the costs of some of the other language sites.  I would like to take a course in Latvian, but there aren't a lot of good ones out there.  Duolingo has a lot of courses - 40 or more, but it doesn't have Latvian or Lithuanian.  We do have the Transparent language learning free with our library cards here in our area - it's just been a while since I logged onto it.  It had Latvian!

languages

Someone asked me again just how many languages I'm learning, which is an interesting twist on how many languages I 'speak'..  and I still say the number I'm making progress in is about ten - but to lay them out, it's hard to be so specific.  So I thought I'd lay it out here, instead, for my own reference.  So - I've had interest or am currently interested in 20 languages up to an introductory level.  I've only gotten a good working knowledge in maybe six, ten if I stretch it.  I've tasted a few others than these - Bulgarian and Navajo, and Zulu, Guarani, Dutch, Indonesian, Hindi and Chinese - just to get an idea what their structures were, but can't say I know more than a word or two here and there.

1. Welsh : I can watch TV and listen to radio and read simpler books without a dictionary - but some of the past and future tense grammar in books still can make me go 'huh?'  I can think up lots of simple things to say and feel I would catch on fairly quickly to the rest if I had a week immersion.  I need to make more time for it, as I often almost forget that I 'speak' it in between the long bouts of jumping around all the others.  Duolingo level 25+, have not done any other tests

2. French : Some of it is built in from way back in childhood, but I also can feel the sense that all that I learned was a bit archaic (and bad child grammar etc.) and things have changed in 'modern' French, again - more tv and radio immersion would help - and I can read a LOT and get the drift but when I go into more in depth grammar analysis again I wonder what I know and how much it is smoothed over in between the cracks etc.  Duolingo level 25+, have tested many places and come out with A2-B1 status.

3. Spanish : Still feels like I'm drawing all of it through the French, and that makes it difficult feeling, although I do have some fluency and can read and understand a lot in it.  I should pick up more podcasts, as there are a lot available.  Esme is taking Spanish next year in school - and I wanted to learn it better to help her out.. although, I'm not sure how much day to day she'll share with me either on that.  Duolingo level 23, have tested to A1-A2 status.

4. German : I can say a lot of easy stuff in it, from my language learning in high school.  I can read a lot of it, but not as much as I want.  Duolingo only level 14 or so, but that is because I don't focus on it.  Have not tested any further.

5. Czech : I always felt that somehow I was being helped by my knowledge of French with this one - because I've gotten to level 19 on Duolingo and I understand a lot of what I read.. have not done much pronunciation, and am doing a run at learning more vocabulary and spelling with the set of tiles Mark made.  Czech really helps with learning Russian and Bulgarian.

6. Japanese : Level 19 on Duolingo and some work with Kanji, but I still feel 'at sea' with more than hiragana - there is a lot there to take in, and I can't say too much useful although I can understand some basic restaurant stuff.  I would like to get back in the mood to want to do more of it, but I'm having too much fun over here on the other side of the map, Czech and Latvian and Russian and so forth... 

7. Romanian : Level 17 on Duolingo, started it after French and before I hit Spanish and Czech.  Again, it felt some other language as helping my understanding here - Latin knowledge from a child, and French.  I feel there is a link there to several other languages and would appreciate more time to work on pronunciation but there aren't as many resources.  I don't know how I'd do at a market or restaurant with this one - but I'd like to give it a whirl.  I found a news radio station in it once on radiogarden and it was moving way too fast for me - would like to try another station that was more pop music etc.

8. Russian : level 11 on Duolingo - and halfway through an A1 course on Busuu.  I feel I can read Cyrillic much better now after doing this much - and my pronunciation of things it has asked me to try isn't half bad, but Czech is definitely helping me out on this one.

9.  Finnish : Level 13 on Duolingo.  I have been able to read a very simple children's book story - and I just tested to my phone with it and I didn't remember a lot of the spelling.  I can't say I know Finnish well at all, based on that.  I can remember some words, count, colors etc - but I'm less than A1, definitely.

10.  Catalan - it's between French and Spanish - level 12 on Duolingo, some more on my phone account - I feel I would probably come close to understanding this if I lived in an area or took a vacation there etc.. it matches a lot of my natural 'patois' of French and Latin.  I don't give it a lot of time - because it's hard to practice and Duolingo and wandering around Barcelona google maps is about all I can do to work on it.  Out of the more obscure languages, I feel this one would be one of the best fits for my brain, and it really really helped me learn Spanish over the 'hump' that I was stuck at, because it was that in-between stage with the Spanish interface.  // insert here I've also done up to level 14 of Spanish from the French interface, but not before I had gotten pretty far in the Catalan and realized those connections were helping so much

11.  Portuguese : level 16 on Duolingo.  I pick it up and drop it off pretty easily - when I come back to it after a long time, I remember a lot of it.  I should find that cookbook site again that I was using, because it was very good practice - nearly got me dreaming in it.  I might get along okay, or not.  I can't say I actually speak it, because I know French and Spanish would come out and I would have to correct myself a lot to get in the proper channel.

12.  Greek : Level 14 on Duolingo.  I have taken a few other lessons with Greek101pod etc, and I've tested really well on reading the alphabet, but have a long way to go with learning the grammar.  I can understand a lot of what I hear when it's simple - but it feels like it is slingshotting through the Spanish and the Spanish feels like it is slingshotting through the French, so... there's that.  I could give it more time - I pick it up on my phone app sometimes for a brain change with the alphabet.  I can't say I know it, but I have an interest in working with it more.

13.  Italian : Level 15 on Duolingo.  No, I do not know Italian.  I don't know what I know on this one - I get by because of all the other languages I know, and adapt.  But then, I studied Romanian and Spanish and Portuguese to make the attempt at Italian, because I wasn't getting any of it before that.  So, I've made progress.  I know some Latin, which has helped.  If there was more reason for me to look at it as more than 'another one in the big wheel to spin', I'd study some more of it.

the meme I had made back in 2019, 2020? 

I'm on par *ha* so far

14.  Swedish : Level 11 on Duolingo.  I get by on here through my German language learning - and could put some more work into it.  It's another resource thing, and time, and interested in other things.

15.  Norwegian - same thing as Swedish - level 11 on Duolingo, haven't really felt like going further with it, and interested in other things.

16. Hungarian - level 10 on Duolingo, I have no idea what I'm doing there and poking in the dark, mesmerized by the grammar, but not enough to give it the study it deserves.

17.  Turkish - same as the Hungarian, mesmerized by the grammar changes and the SVO (subject verb object) but I haven't went beyond level  10 on Duolingo.

18.  Ukrainian - did a little of this, up to level 10, but Czech draws me more, and then I began learning more Russian because it was in the Cyrillic alphabet and I wanted to get that under my belt.  Ukrainian is it's own language but I haven't focused on it, and the programs were available more for the other languages.

19.  Latvian and Lithuanian - I'm in the vocab stage on these, done a little bit reading children's books, game sites, and I know they are also two separate languages with a bit of overlap here and there.  There aren't a lot of resources and I'm lucky to have what I do have to poke at them with.  

so, tonight - after thinking this through here, I went and did a bit of Catalan and a good dose of Italian (an hour of VERY rapid-fire answers, maybe I'm not so bad at it.. but the spelling still gets me, and it's picky about the spelling) and then I decided to do a different kind of chart for a week to see where I'm at - here is it with today filled out - the bottom bit should be that A1 Russian for every day, if I keep at it, it's about 10 minutes a day and a little review, so it's not a big commitment, I just have to remember to head to that site sometime after I get home from work usually.  Vocab only is baltoslav or babadum, and I will count that but I didn't do any of it today... instead I went over to the audio site Clozemaster and did some Romanian.

language learning vocabulary

So this is the fifth or sixth day I've done comparative Latvian<->Lithuanian vocabulary and Russian and Spanish lessons on the same day.  And my brain is in the 'drawing connections, remembering patterns' stage.  I just have to keep it up.

Notes on learning language method - when I begin to point at pictures and say the word, instead of just hear it and choose it - I know I'm actually taking it in at a deeper level, the way children learn vocabulary.  This is also the stage where I begin to ask myself later - what WAS that word, do I remember it?  What is the word for this?  For that?  Hey, those four similar words all have *x* sequence in them, or something very similar to them - maybe, they all share the same root or have the same 'form' (like fireman - runner - mechanic - garbage man, all have the 'is a person who does something' added to the end of them) - or that the other suffix actually means 'thing that <--' etc.  Lots of verbs, but not all of them, end in i 

 

And my brain begins to ask : Hey, do we know all the numbers yet?  How about the colors?  We know *x,x,x,x* body part words, but do you know what X is?  This is because I'm using that babadum and baltoslav tools sites which randomly give you words and pictures in your target language - so you are learning it more realistically, bit of everything all mixed up, then repetition at random intervals.  What I am finding the most intriguing is the way the brain wants to fill in the gaps and begins running 'discovery' 'fill in the blanks' and 'if this, then ?'

Notes : (don't take these as firm meanings, this is me poking holes and trying to work out the language as a non-native learner)

niekas - nekta - nothing

kazkas - something

kas - what (perhaps who?)

atidaryti - to open pradėti - to start / begin

uždaryti - to close to finish / end : užbaigti

skaityti - to read

žiūrėti - to see, view  (also : matyi - to see, witness)

mokykla - school, mokyk - to teach mokytis - to learn

rašy - to do with writing (parašyti)

----rašytojas : a writer   parašas : a signature 

--- laikraštis (time+write?) newspaper  laišką (a letter)

piesti - to do with drawing (pieštukas = pencil) 

tapyti - to paint (teptukas = paint)

sokti - to do with jumping

šaukštas - a spoon

šepetys - a brush  šluota : a broom

ilgas - to be lengthy, to be long

trumpas - to be short, not having length 

spinta - closet, spintele - cupboard  (Latvian  : skapis)

stala - table (Latvian : galds)

kėdė - chair (Latvian : krēsls)

suolas - bench / desk 

kilimas : rug  also uzklotas (a cover, duvet?) Latvian : paklājs

blanket : antklode, antklodas

grindys - the floor

aukštas - weird word?, meaning 'great / grand / tall' but also, sometimes, the floor?

dangus - the sky / heavens / above

aukščiau - above  virš - over   ant - onto, on top of

laba - generally meaning 'good'

blogas - generally meaning 'bad' / evil, wicked

zalingas - harmful, dangerous

zeme - having to do with the ground Zeme means 'Earth'

gėlių  / gėlės : flowers

gyvūnai - animals, gyvūlai  : cattle  gyva (alive)

daržovės - vegetables, greenstuffs 

ūkis  : farm  daržinė : barn  tvartas : barn / stable

višti : chicken  vištiena (chicken to eat)

kiaušinis - egg (Latvian : olu)

virti - to cook, to boil  garai - to steam (garas : steam)

kniga / knyga : books  (this is the same word in Czech)

žvaigždė - stars žvaigždynas (constellation)  -dynas ?  system / pattern?

tinklas - net, also to do with netlike things 

tvora, tvorė- a fence, and fence like things 

----a hedge is : gyvatvorė where gyva means : alive

virvė - a rope, and rope-like things  

lyna / lynus - a line like thing  pynė : string

saltys - having to do with cold

ledo - having to do with ice

maistas - mitalas - food, maitinti - to feed / nourish 

---laistyti - to give water to  

---gerti - to drink

-ninkis? - a person who does something

---aha! 'karininkas' means official, officer, someone appointed to do something

augalas - having to do with plants

ugnis - having to do with fire

jūra - the sea  jūre, jūro- having to do with the sea, from the sea

saule - having to do with the sun

karsta - hot

lenta - having to do with a board / shelf

langas - having to do with a window

siūlas - having to do with sewing,  thread  siūti : to sew

zve- prefix: - having to do with fish   žuvis : fish

upė - river,  upelis -  stream, creek, brook

udens / vandens - water

lašas - droplet, a drop of water, a small glob dew, tear

ašara - a teardrop 

būda - a house, a hut 

----however,  namas : a house, dwelling (in Lithuanian) and mājas : a house (in Latvian) 

urvas - a cave, cavern, burrow  also : ola, ala (Latvian)

anga - a hole also urvas, pramusa

mediena / medis - having to do with wood, sometimes, (not medved, that is bear) 

kirtys - having to do with cutting (medkirtys = woodcutter)

vanikis - karuna, crown

spyna - a lock,  raktas - a key 

burnas - the mouth

akis - the eye

vilk - having to do with wolf

avis - the sheep

stačia : stable, upright

kampis : angle   stačiakampis : rectangle trikampis: triangle 

senas, senia - old, aged  senelis - grandfather 

jaunas - young  jaunamis : young person, jaunikis : bridegroom??

vyras - man, male  vyriškis - a gentleman

kudikis - baby,  vaikas - young children  jauniklis - offspring, younglings

pirst - having to do with a finger (antpirstis - thimble) (pirstina - glove) 

delnas - the palm of the hand

ranka - the hand

galva - the head

laik, laikas - having to do with time? maybe?

arbata - having to do with tea

puoda - a pot, puodelis - a cup (a little pot?)

šalmas - a helmet

-tukas - implement / object ??  

greitas : to be fast, rapid, quick

-siukas / liukas, having to do with offspring?   a small thing?

plakti, pliekti - to beat, lash, whip, also to clap : plaktukas : a hammer,  

--ploti, suploti, paploti  : to flatten plojimai : to clap hands, applause

-plauti - to wash / rinse,  to clean : valyti

kauliukai kauliukas is dice, and kaul is a stone

but also kumeliukas is colt, and versiukas is calf  avenelis is a lamb

gaudyti, sugauti, pagauti : to catch

rinkinys rinkimas : a set or collection

įrankiai  / rykai: tools  (see above : rankinis - by hand, manual)

maišas - a bag 

du- dvi - / sometimes to do with the number two (dvinia - twins) dvigubai - double

pienu / pieno - milk   (I've seen this before, but can't remember what language)

geležies : having to do with iron (ferrous) 

---geležinkelis (railway (tracks)) 

duoti - to give, rodyti : to show off   davona : gift 

petnešos : suspenders, braces   nešos (will carry)

stiklas, bokalas : glasses, mugs etc.  stiklainis : jar

skalbinai - laundry   to wash : skalbimas (washing machine : Skalbimo mašina)

vaista - drugs, medicines   vaistine - apothercary, pharmacy

parduotuvė : shop, magasin, store   parduoti : to sell (verb)

vėje : the wind, but I see it in several words that mean to carry, to have, to dispense 

vaisių sodas : orchard   vaisių meaning fruits,  sodas meaning garden

liesti - to touch

for later :

also : https://www.spokenlithuanian.com/how-to-make-a-question-in-lithuanian-language

The work weekend has finished out - and the mail truck is back at the mechanic getting it's gas leaking issue looked at.  We have the other vehicle back, and Mark wants to get our groceries bought and go try the other flea market in the afternoon tomorrow.

I'll be looking forward to sleeping in just a little - and of course, continuing with this language learning stage.

Made Pad thai from the package for Esme and I again tonight - I really like that and it was fairly quick when we just made it with eggs.  She was really into some online game today.  I did about four and a half hours of packages today, took a nap, helped Mark make peanut butter fudge, then immediately made dinner, and then the mechanic called.

pvc loom crochet hamper huge cat

 

I had set up a very simple pvc loom, but a bit more complicated than this, about eight years ago.  Of course, I drew three plans last night thinking about it, and then went and looked in the box of stuff in the garage, and slapped this together without having to cut anything or go to town for parts. Currently, waiting for my brain to kick in what I've forgotten - or throw some simple acrylic yarn on there and see what the in-real-time issues are that show themselves.  I made a purse on this last time and I know it had a cross-bar of some type.. and it was always falling over with JUST ts on the bottom, so I put some extensions on this one to hold behind the brick.  But still - I know this is only 1.0.. maybe even .99, because I didn't even have to cut anything.  

(curiosity / techie : the height is a good 36 inches (plus a few, so finished 36 is possible), by a potential 36, more likely a 30 or 24 inch width.. we'll have to see.  The bars are now glued in such a way that the top 'u' can be removed, and extended with a coupling and more pipe for greater height, but the bottom cross-bar is glued tight to keep that from slipping and the elbow and T are glued at the top corners, as well)

I would like to try a twill or a herringbone type thing again, and that takes some distance to make it look really nice, but it's also 'tetchy'.  I'd like to try multiple coloured warps.

Mark wants to bake today, and make candy. 

He made terrariums for propagating begonias with Esme the other day, planted coleus and tomatoes etc etc.. They've been very busy there.  Esme bought a new bike with the money I had set aside for her, as her other one was not adult sized and she has grown.  She could have bought whatever she wanted I told her - and that is what she wanted.  It was on sale, and we had to replace some parts on it right away, and it was a bit fraught and tense, but between the three of us we did get it operational and she learned how to use the new gears and brakes which were different from her old bike.  Sometimes when Mark and I are arguing about tools (wrench type and sizes) and methods though, Esme feels like she is caught in the middle... but we got through it, even with my dyslexia that always adds to that.

I made a little distance on the orange weaving although I have no immediate use for it at the moment.

 

Mark was watching a horror film last night (well, historical vampire thing) and I had just begun this, so I continued working on it so I could look at it and not the screen most of the time.  Still, images tried to repeat later when I wanted to sleep - such is a half-photographic memory.  But I made a good progress and I love the colours on it - it is almost all black with the red thread on the bottom, and then it will stripe, then be the lighter color on top with the handles - I made a bit larger one a few years ago and use it as a hamper hanging up, but keep forgetting it by the washing machine and then coming upstairs and saying 'oh, the hamper is gone'.  A second one won't help that entirely, but it can't hurt, and I do love the stripes.

 

Loki cat with all his stripes

telling me I can't make the bed because he is so huge and can't move... it's a queen sized bed, and I usually do put all the blankets right in the morning - but with twenty pounds of parked cat, it's a bit difficult.

 

Charlotte and Minion cat

Languages : Czech, Catalan, Spanish, French, 

bit of still very introductory Russian to compare the Cyrillic

 spellings with the Czech

I tested into third section with the Spanish on my phone, only in the first section of Catalan (tiene muy poco!) which is in Spanish (so it's really double-duty and fun because of that), and into the middle of the first section of Czech, which I was quite happy with as I didn't remember how much I remembered.  Doing the (high level grammar) French and Russian alternatively on the other profile to round out the xp there daily.  Sometimes I can do the French all day and that is the best thing - sometimes I only want to do that grammar once and then move onto something simpler.  I really appreciated alternating with the Cyrillic alphabet today - it felt like I was using another part of my brain that needed the exercise.  I've been considering updating and practicing the Greek again for exactly the same reason, but not quite ready to dive back into Japanese - I feel like that needs more time to percolate through layers and then well back up to be interesting again.

Charlotte snoring loudly and having what seems to be an excellent afternoon nap...  We've made four dozen cookies, Esme has put a ring with the hatchet around a tree that we intend to cut down sometime in the coming years, and I've used some pvc glue on half of the joints of the loom and warped up a strap to test it out with.  I remember I had made myself a 'nail apron' pocket thing to tie to the bottom rail to hold bits of yarn bobbins that were in use - going to have to find that again, it's in the gardening things likely.

Languages

November 2023, vs July 2023, vs December 2022 

Since they initiated the hearts system on me I haven't been advancing very fast - but I know that Japanese has gone from level 10 to 'level 19' in that time, so their original system is not working there...

old crown numbers here because that is what I was keeping track in before they changed THAT system last year... to levels, and now they've changed it yet again to 'sections and units'  //roll eyes, just pick something and stick with it!

DuoLingo:

French           475 /  464  / 417

Welsh            376 /  370  / 360

Spanish         309 /  294  / 243

Czech           169 /   169  / 160

Romanian     149 /  149  / 144

Portuguese     111 / 111  / 89

Italian             91  /  91  / 83

Japanese       77 ??  /   77  / 65 (not right, I've advanced 9 levels)

Greek             74  /  72  / 61

German       80 /  79  / 60

Finnish       71 /   70  / 62

Norwegian   67 /   67  / 47

Swedish       43 /  43  / 43

Irish             51 / 51  /  51

Turkish         39 / 39  / 38

Catalan        38 /  34  / 23 * (learning via Spanish language)

Polish         30/    30  / 30

Hungarian    26 / 26  / 21

Ukrainian    19 /  19   / 0 (began April)

Guarani         7 / 6  / 0 (began April) * (learning via Spanish language)

Chinese         11 / 4  / 0 (began July)

 

external : Latvian, working on just a little of it here and there

Two workdays language geek

 

As a part-time postal carrier my work week revolves around the weekends, when the full-timers are usually off.  I work during the week sometimes, sometimes I work the entire week with no days off... but it's all sort of up in the air and week to week I'm not sure of anything except - I'm usually working the weekend unless I arrange for something else to happen.  Also - I passed two years on DuoLingo streak the other day... but since the hearts upgrade I'm still quite unhappy with how sensitive the spelling and such is and how much that stagnates my progress.

 

So, this is Saturday and Sunday.  My daughter's birthday was on Saturday but we did things for her on Friday because I knew Saturday was going to be a full day with getting dark early etc etc..

 So I got home, we made dinner and watched a movie and did the dishes and I did a minimum amount of a few languages and crashed.  That is a typical Saturday.. yes. 

 

Sunday I run Amazon packages, and it starts a little later.  It was also Daylight Savings Time so my animals had me up 'early'.. and I got a little language work in because hey, I was up anyway.  Made dinner after work, watched some tv episodes on DVD, did a few language things and played a game, then crashed.. took a Welsh grammar lesson in the middle of the night when the dog had me up, but I failed it by two questions and have to retake it when my credits on that site pop back up. *sigh*  One 'cat's tail' apostrophe in the wrong place or a ddim () nawr instead of a erbyn hyn and it goes down.

I haven't been called in yet on Monday, and my chart is up in the other screen.  I only do the charts for a little bit, and it gives me an idea what my 'average' is... and how much I switch off for variety.  It's also been a stressful few weeks and I realize I fall back to doing more in French at times when I have stress - the grammar level is much much higher than the Spanish or the Japanese, but still, my brain likes it better and starts sub-translating more again as below:

On the route - aucun côté ou autre côté?  Ah!  Na ça va... ça va a ci.

I have no idea why I think aucun côté instead of something like 'ce côté' or 'mon côté' or even 'pas du côté' but it's in my brain that way when I don't have to go the other side of the vehicle and I think it's a mnemonic thing that the two terms 'aucun' and 'autre' feel right and left handed pair to me...

Language geek

I did a few of these charts last year or more ago, just to see how often I return to the activities / switch the activities over the day and was just as surprised then how much I switch all through the day in almost spirals.  They say this 'spaced repetition' is all the rage, but I've been doing it for years.

Typical language geeking while off from post office today, did my Japanese Kanji reviews and a bit of DuoLingo in Japanese and Spanish first thing in the morning. I also took some time to browse and read hiragana and kanji and look up things on signs and advertisements and images that I could not read at first. I took some French tests, Japanese and Spanish review sessions and then played Stardew Valley for an hour in French... and a bit more here and there waiting for things over the day.  I was playing it in Japanese here and there, as well, a few weeks ago.

 

We took Esme out for her birthday dinner after school and also picked up the truck from the mechanic.  It still doesn't feel 100%, but we'll still have to see.  Then I finished the laundry and crashed when we got home, because it is cold and it felt like it had been a long day already.

 

As usual, when the animals wake me up in the night I spend a little time on some language waiting for them to cycle in and out of the house and getting ready to fall back asleep.  I don't do this on my phone, but at the computer desk.

 

Friday : a non-work day : it is now 1:45 am on Saturday (at update)

 

 

Saturday and Sunday will both be 'work' days... we'll see how that goes