My week in languages

Hi! First of all, thank you very much for subscribing and reading my weekly updates. It means a lot. This week, I thought I’d share a loose breakdown of how and what I did with my languages throughout the week. Now, mind you, this was kind of an odd week — I was on a week-long holiday in a lovely wellness centre, meaning that I was a bit off my usual routine. Nevertheless, I wanted to share this not in a way of bragging (there’s really nothing to brag about) but just a way of showing how easy it is to incorporate HOURS of language learning even into a rather busy schedule. So here it goes:

Swedish (my “from scratch” language still in its embryo form)

1. Watched a Slow Swedish video on the topic of clothes. I have already mentioned this before — I dislike flashcards and find staring at the same content the best way of learning vocabulary. And now I know that jeans in Swedish is… JEANS.

2. Started watching a Netflix series called Love and Anarchy. In Swedish. With Swedish subtitles. There are full sentences I don’t understand. Many full sentences I don’t understand. But there are enough context cues for me to get the gist. And I’ll be rewatching the same episode many times. Maybe not as many as this fellow:

3. Had a language learning podcast on during a couple of walks. It’s not the most interesting content in the world, but I guess it’ll do for now.

Spanish

4. Had my second session with a tutor! I’ve recently reconnected with my old Spanish teacher nad having private lessons feels so good. I was surprised by how much I’ve retained and how easily I can speak (with a bunch of mistakes in terms of tenses, of course).

5. Listened to a 45-minute podcast episode about Spanish cinema, realising that there are so many good movies I haven’t watched yet. My problem with watching movies is I rarely have the patience or time or mind frame to sit for 2 hours and watch a movie. But I think I’ll just start watching in chunks. And there’s no one there to judge me!

Turkish

6. I don’t use Turkish enough these days, but it’s still a strong language for me, as I’ve spent 4 years in university mastering it. To expand my vocabulary in an area of one of my interests, I watched 2 videos with Turkish badminton teachers explaining some attack and defense movements.

Other/miscellanea/doesn’t really count

I also translated 5 short documentary clips from Lithuanian to English. I enjoy gigs like this from time to time, although I wouldn’t want to do it full-time (which I had for 5 years). Might go to a screening next week, which is nice.

And how has your week been?

Until next time,

Oleg