Hermit Diary 44. Lockdown Language Learning

When coping with this interminable disruption to our lives, daily routines help -- so say the psychologists.  I've tried. Predictably, some routines have been more successful than others. Daily exercise gets maybe a B, that is, after my Achilles tendonitis got better - which also required a daily routine of PT stretches and tendon massage. I've done almost no strength training, though, just walking. Practicing the piano barely rates a C, though I've been doing better lately. I've read a lot, and will give myself a A for that. Cooking with some energy and ingenuity. Drawing and artwork, OK, but not every day by any means. Meditation? Yoga? Nope. Writing has been tough. I've tried to give myself some fun -- each day I do the NY Times mini crossword and several days a week I do the Spelling Bee puzzle, putting the answers on a spreadsheet and looking them up the next day, because I'm too cheap to buy a games subscription to the Times. I've been getting dressed (jeans and a top or sweater at least) every day, taking care of my non-professionally-cut hair, putting on earrings and even a little lipstick, because without that basic self-care I know I'm lost.

But where I've apparently been the most diligent is on Duolingo. When I passed the 300-day streak mark, I went back to figure out what date I started -- it was right at the end of last December. I've "studied" several languages on Duolingo over the years: French, Spanish, a bit of Italian and German. When I began this time, we had recently come back from Greece, and I decided to study some modern Greek, since I still remembered some ancient Greek from my college days but had been frustrated while traveling by my ability to "read" signs but say practically nothing. Then, in early March, the pandemic began. Somewhere right around there, I switched to Latin, and did the whole course on Duolingo, which is short and easy, and only comprises three checkpoints. Then I went back to the Greek and have kept it up every day since, using only three or four "streak freezes" to protect my streak in case I forget.

The app reminds you, occasionally, "15 minutes of Duolingo a day can teach you a language. What can 15 minutes of social media do?" Well, the latter phrase makes is a good point, but can you really learn a language this way? I wasn't so sure. I had learned some basic Spanish on Duolingo that definitely helped during our travels to Mexico City, and the French lessons clarified my weak areas in that language. Starting essentially from scratch with the Greek (I knew the alphabet so that wasn't an obstacle, but very few words or phrases) I was barely able to tell if the conjugations and declensions bore any relationship to ancient Greek, because Duolingo doesn't teach you that way. Different concepts are presented, sort of without you realizing it, under the subject heading of, say, "Animals" or "Clothing." Nobody says, "the third person singular of the verb to have is such-and-such", you just get sentences like "The woman has a child" and "The boy has a dog" until you've got it, and then "I have a husband" and "I have a cat" introduce the first-person singular form of the verb, also without telling you, or asking you to memorize a conjugation. In fact, you're never shown a verb table, or how to decline nouns, adjectives, or pronouns. Nobody tells you the rules, and nobody tells you the exceptions; you just have to figure it out by making mistakes and puzzling over the correct answer. For someone who has studied languages the traditional way, I found myself doubting I was learning anything except how to say inane and useless things like "My pet is a hamster."

So at first I got frustrated, which is why I switched languages. In the meantime, I ordered a modern Greek grammar book and a small dictionary/phrase book. After I finished the Latin lessons, I went back to the Greek. To my surprise, I actually remembered some of what I'd learned, and then started being a bit more methodical about it: writing notes, keeping lists of vocabulary, and making flash cards. I also started studying the basic grammar, just to get a better idea what the rules were -- sentence order, for one thing, and pitfalls for English speakers like the fact that modern Greek requires articles before most nouns, including first names: "the Eleni" instead of just "Helen."

In Duolingo, the first two practice levels (of five) for each skill or subject area don't require you to do difficult listening exercises, or write much Greek translation either from written English sentences, or from audio Greek. I progressed through two and a half checkpoints, going through the first two levels of each skill. Then, doubting myself, I went back to the beginning and started trying to complete all five levels -- and it got a lot harder, very fast. However, my retention started to improve, and my listening skills took a leap forward: modern Greek pronunciation is completely different from what I had learned from my classics profs.

So, am I learning, with my 15 minutes a day? Yes, slowly, just because I've been at it for a long time now. I'm not impressed with my concentration or overall effort. It's the persistence and repetition that have paid some benefits.

I remember at the beginning of the pandemic how people were saying, "Oh, with all this time, we ought to be able to write that novel, learn a language, study classical guitar, read Ulysses or War and Peace..." and then, when our concentration went to hell, our sleep became terrible, we fought with our partners or kids or became consumed by loneliness and confinement, and we didn't even know what day it was -- that was when we got obsessed by the news and started riding a rollercoaster of anxiety and depression, amid other days that felt more normal and optimistic. A lot of us felt guilty or confused about why we couldn't seem to do the things that we thought we were going to do -- I had hoped to finish writing a book, for instance, and I'm nowhere close. A friend sent me an article written by someone funny, who was trying to express her depression and lack of motivation, and she describes herself telling her therapist, 'I feel like I should be learning Portuguese" and the therapist says, "Don't you DARE learn Portuguese!" And no matter how well we may have managed in one area, I bet most of us feel like that in many others, and wish somebody would just say, "Don't you dare...!" and let us off our self-hung hook.

My sister-in-law, a retired academic who's gifted in languages, is studying Arabic for the third time in her life, and this time it's finally taking hold. She's taking a rigorous online course, and working on it for many many hours a day, and I think that's fantastic. But I can't do that, and don't really want to. Fifteen minutes a day works for me, and I've made enough progress that when I see a Greek sentence I know the parts of speech I'm seeing, even if I don't know the words, and my vocabulary is growing. Will I ever use it? Who knows. I think what this exercise has shown me is that the little-bit-every-day approach does pay off over time in language study, just as it does in a drawing practice. A seemingly daunting but desired goal is broken down into manageable little bits, and you commit to it, try not to get discouraged and give up, and eventually you see you've actually made progress. That's all.

But we're not all the same. Also at the beginning of the pandemic, someone created a humorous set of twelve staged photos showing people of different Zodiac signs reacting to the new reality. One person was in pajamas all day, another was happily boozing, another in a cleaning frenzy, and so on. And there was my sign, Virgo, looking neatly pulled together, at her desk, working away. Great. I'm not a believer in astrology, though I do have many of the characteristics thought to be "typical" for a Virgo. What I appreciated, besides the humor, was not that Virgos are organized, annoying workaholics, but that it illustrated so clearly how different we all are -- a fact that's been borne out throughout this thing and that is totally OK. "Don't you dare learn Portuguese!" you Gemini - it will make you miserable!

So, I'm curious how it's played out for you. What has worked, and what hasn't? And are you beating yourself up or accepting yourself as you are, because, honestly, having compassion and gentleness for ourselves is the first and most important practice of all. Then, only then, maybe you can find 15 minutes a day to practice something else.

 

Comments

[Duchesse]

I too decided to focus my language study. For me that takes a multi-directional approach: immersion in other people speaking it, a tutor to focus on •me• speaking, classes (where I am amused that crappy French speakers can understand one another perfectly while the teacher has her face screwed up in misapprehension), videos and podcasts. But I don't think much of Duolingo because I need that grammar: language is a climbing wall on which I need to bang mental pitons.

[Roderick Robinson]

At eighty-five learning singing is enough, especially since it gets harder as you become more and more appreciative of your shortcomings. The aim is to interpret; the non-aim is to avoid becoming mannered. For pity's sake!

My (instructed) repertoire is about eighty songs and/or arias. Only one has Italian lyrics. So V says, "Let's go back to Vaga Luna which you rejected on the grounds that it looked sentimental." So here I am, trying to accommodate a superfluity of syllables which the score does not acknowledge. The French for "to swallow" is avaler but you knew that.

For me writing is writing fiction. And by fiction I mean a product of the imagination, not the tarting up of historical reality. Oh what a flirt imagination is, while I am sere and withered - I'd pay to make myself more attractive to her, and yes, she is feminine. But she asks to be indulged. Her rewards get more and more grudging but occasionally there is a frisson:

Gayle laughed loudly and happily, causing others to turn in their seats. “Kid, you slay me. You’ve been earning big money for how long? A couple of years. Money that seems almost undeserved, that makes you feel guilty when you take the tube or drop in for a bottle of cognac at a supermarket. You buy a flat in the Barbican and the balance in your current account drops a few thou. Eighteen months later it’s up again. You attend a charity auction and bid big bucks for three uninteresting letters hand-written by Trollope; then secretly, and hating yourself, you start reading one of the Palliser novels.

But beyond that, 50,000 words remain to be written.

Best of luck with language viewed through an entirely different periscope.

[Les]

I know a lot of people have excess time, but I don't have much extra time as I'm working from home (although lucky I can do so). Even though I cut back my hours to the 30/week minimum required to have health insurance from my company, I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the work since we're short-handed as some of my colleagues have also cut back (eg, parents working from home with kids schooling from home). Modern capitalism means ever increasing productivity demands, higher goals to meet every year, pandemic notwithstanding. So the work is more exhausting on top of the extra anxieties of everything we're dealing with. My partner had some worrying health issues late spring/early summer that took time to resolve. Even our summer vacation, a week away at the Cape, was accompanied by the stress of deciding what's safe and what's not. Last month I took a week off at home, alone, minimizing news and social media, took walks in the neighborhood and a couple of times at the wildlife sanctuary nearby, did some much needed house cleaning/sorting, tried to get some sleep, read a bit, crocheted. It was lovely and restful. But one week was not nearly enough. I'll get some more time during the holidays, although we will be more confined to home than we were able to be in warmer weather. I will try to still get outside for fresh air and we'll make the best of it.

[Pete]

I'm fortunate to live in a country (Aotearoa New Zealand) where life is now carrying on more or less the way it did before the pandemic (not necessarily good in all respects, but that's another matter). I did enjoy our month-long lockdown earlier this year but it wasn't as easy for some others. What I missed most was not being able to spend time among mountains — even the track just 15 minutes from my door was out of bounds — and the idea that a return to India and Nepal will be impossible for the foreseeable future saddens me. But I'd pretty much resigned myself to that even before the pandemic.

I supplemented my Spanish lessons with Duolingo and found it well worthwhile. I also used it to learn some basic Hindi and made a little progress before leaving for India; however, at a couple of points the Hindi lessons took a major jump in difficulty that almost led me to give up. I thought Duolingo was supposed to tailor the lessons to whatever progress you're making, but the algorithm obviously needed some refinement for me.

If I resumed learning a language, I'd be sure to set up vocab flashcards in Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net), which is a brilliant app based on solid principles of effective learning (for example, spaced repetition).