Languages

 My usual goto language program, DuoLingo, disappointed me a little in upgrading my account to this 'hearts' system - which punishes you for making mistakes.. which is definitely NOT the best way to learn a language.  All of the programs that I have really learned from take the 'make lots of mistakes, we'll tell you they're wrong - but then give you opportunity to fix it and/or learn the right answer'.  The guy from Say Something in Welsh has that as his mantra ' make lots of mistakes, it means you're learning!'...

Anyway, I was using DuoLingo less, because of this.  But, because it is so easy to use and switch langauges, I was still using it daily.  But now I had all this extra TIME on my hands... so I started branching out into learning Kanji on WaniKani and Kanshudo and several other places, and picked back up my LingQ (free version) and Transparent Languages (free from my library card).  Our internet access has improved, so I also began watching a lot more Youtube videos, which feels VERY odd.. even to the point that when I am reading recipes now I am not certain if I saw a series of related process pictures or saw a video on the technique.  In the past - I would have known I didn't  click on a video, because they would load so VERY slow, but now, my brain is tricking me!

I did a little more art recently:

 

'Ananas' (rabbit with pineapple)

little 9 inch by 12 inch painting the other night

 

a slightly off attempt to sketch a photograph I saw - but it was fun and I didn't have to get up from my desk for any colors

I was going to lay down to sleep last night and I felt the twinge : If I sketched on a piece of paper right now, and I mean RIGHT NOW, there might be something good there.  Do I want to see whatever it might reveal to me?  Yes, I guess I do.  We can try.  (That is the kind of discussion I have with this pre-lingual half of my brain that this type of art comes from).... so I dashed a few ink lines down on paper and began grabbing pencil after pencil to make the right colors.  I am not entirely certain what it says -something about planting seeds (bird beak and cat's paws) and sharing hearts and vision to rise and rebirth / creation (the symbol on the cat's back)

With the languages, I have improved in Japanese so very much the past two weeks - dreaming in it, reading things on random Pinterest and other images that come up with hiragana and kanji in them - I recognize things now!   I opened up my StarDew Valley game in Japanese - and a lot of it is still 'noise' looking, not reading really just pressing enter and going on, if I stop and really look hard at it I can pick out hiragana and start to recognize a word or two when I think about the sounds.. but some of it is actually leaping out at me now like -oh, that is the sign for bamboo - look that sewer sign, it actually says 'below, water, entrance' etc etc..   With that kind of progress I am - and it is a big deal - thinking of paying the small monthly fee to go further in WaniKani this month.  The Spanish site I was using for grammar wants twice that and I don't use it that much.. but it has improved my Spanish grammar quite a bit in the time it was free to me.  I will have to think further on that one.

I have done a little more French comprehension listening and tipped back into doing French today on DuoLingo even though my spelling is so bad that I trip the hearts system before I even finish 50 XP.  I can't tell my cherchant from my certant sometimes, dyslexia type things I know what I want to type but another word comes out or I miss an 'a' as an 'e' etc etc.  I did my Japanese on WaniKani and expect to do some more later - but I have a feed store run to push myself into going and getting done.

I have had less postal work this week and it looks like the same type of schedule next week - I hope it is just the season.  But I am winding into two days of being on after five off, so I want to keep my head in a good place and not worry too much about it.