Alice:

Hallo Hanz! Am Wochenende habe ich veile Freizeit. Magst du das Theater gehen? Ich will Hamelton sehen.

Heterogenous scheduler support for big.LITTLE CPUs seems like a big deal to me, especially with the Advent of P+E core Intels.

A few weeks of in person tutoring has shown me exactly what my weaknesses are and what I really have to work on. Alas, it feels like a step back rather than a step forward, but I know this is mostly a psychological issue.

Learning about weaknesses is more important. I’m probably making more real progress than my psychology believes.

I’ve explicitly enrolled for classes because I knew my speaking skills sucked. They still suck but now I know the problem. More importantly, I’ve learned the importance of trying to form sentences of my own accord.

To correct this issue, I’ve been advised to start talking to myself (!!!) in German… and start trying to think in complete sentences, etc. etc. You cannot learn sentence construction and conjugation with paper work or exercises, you have to just make sentences over and over again.

A few weeks ago, this would have been impossible. I didn’t know enough vocabulary to talk to myself. But now… I can. With help from Wiktionary and other English-German dictionaries.

I shared some of the children songs with Learning German discord, and some B1-ish people were talking about how some of those songs felt challenging. So indeed, children songs can vary from A1 through B1, don’t be discouraged by the kid nature, some truly are more advanced than they look.

I did accomplish a new feat this past week. Upon listening to 99 Luftballoons, I suddenly realized how none of the lyrics-rhymes work in English. Then I realized that I knew this because I’m actually beginning to learn the German lyrics (to the point where I can sing some of the simpler lyrics: like the 1st verse while it’s still slow).

In particular was my sudden realization that it’s neun-und-neun…zig Luftballoons. (She has a bit of a pause in German before saying -zig). Plus all the nearby words that rhyme with zig/sich/Ich/mich/dich/veillicht . This absolutely cannot and never will work in English, it’s something that can only be appreciated in German.

So I did accomplish a new listening feat. It may have been an entire lifetime of listening to 99 Luftballoons, but now suddenly I’m truly beginning to understand it.

I’ll probably spend the next month working on vocabulary so that I can truly learn 99 Luftballoons. (I finished the vocab practice with Lagtrain German cover by Jinja, but it’s grammar is too difficult for me to comprehend even if I know the individual words).

I’ve done my first two classes last week, and I think my speaking has grossly improved. My German teacher immediately pointed out my weaknesses in ie, ei, r, Z, ö. I knew “r” was hard, but I “didn’t even know” I was messing up ei, ie, or Z. (ö is one I “felt” like I was doing wrong, but wasn’t as hard as r sounds). So that’s nice, there’s nothing like a proper teacher who can help you with this pronunciation. However, there’s a curse for Anki: now I’m much slower in Anki as I’m trying to “re-practice” all the words but now with correct pronunciation (I’m marking many words as “wrong” when I notice I mispronounce them, meaning Anki reviews are taking up way more time this past week).

That’s the nature of it however: learning that your practice was wrong leads to new practice to “rewire” and fix your old habits. Its like any other skill, the more you learn the more you have to repractice.

I’ve grossly expanded my collection of Spotify songs. I’m listening to German Rap, meme-songs, more children songs and translated anime-songs (into German). Its probably too soon for me to write up a new topic, but maybe I’ll share with everyone the songs I’m listening to every couple of weeks.

Hmmm, one video to share for sure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYkBf0dbs5I

A German tongue-twister + rap about Barbara’s Rhubarb Bar and the Barbarians and their Barber visiting. Its a whole bunch of nonsense, but its all “simple German words + cognates”, so I’d expect beginners (A1 and A2) to be able to follow it. After all, Barbara, Rhabarb, Barbar (Barbarian), Bert (Beard), Bar all have “obvious” German cognates and that’s most of the joke right there. The hard part is the speed (the performer is very well practiced with these tongue-twisters). But you can .75x speed it and slow it down on Youtube, or even 0.5x speed if you need it even slower.

A lot of the rhyming words are A1 or A2 level: aber (but), fern (far), fahren (to drive), gar (at all). SAGen (said), paar (pair), Jahr (year)… so yeah, don’t aim for complete understanding but you’ll can get substantial understanding if you can keep up with the speed.

I went to a physical bookstore today (quaint, I know), and flipped through the German books they had. They had a “beginner short story book” that I picked up, flipped through and realized I had 80%+ of the words understood. This is sufficient for learning, albeit with a lot of effort from a dictionary (Wikitionary) to help me through. Lo-and-behold, I’m reading through its forward now and it claims to be an A2-B1 level book (!!!).

I wouldn’t say I’m “officially” A1+ yet, as I don’t plan on taking any test. But this is a good sign that my effort is paying off. If A2-B1 material is useful to me, then yeah… I’m definitely in a much stronger place than I was even just a few weeks ago. My reading skills are clearly approaching A2-ish material.

EDIT: This short-story book says that you should NOT expect to be able to understand all the words. Instead, keep a notebook with a list of the words not-understood, and look them up after reading the story once. Then, look up the definitions, then reread the story with improved understanding. I’ve never tried this before, but I’ll aim for it. Hopefully the list of “not known words” is small enough to be workable, lol… its about 3 pages per story here.

While I was flipping through German books, I found a German Phrasebook. I was reading through it mostly amusingly (look at what “tourists” have to do to keep up with my power!!!). But… in all honesty, its kind of useful for learning. Instead of having a strict vocabulary, this is translating phrases in English into phrases in German. No, its NOT perfectly accurate (!!!), but that’s… fine?

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/272707/the-penguin-german-phrasebook-by-jill-norman-ute-hitchin-renata-henkes/

At $10 and maybe 300+ pages of dense phrases, I can highly recommend for learners. In all honesty, it feels like it reaches into B1-level vocabulary. All the phrases are extremely simple (and not even necessarily complete sentences), but… that’s fine for learning? We learners have to memorize all kinds of stuff, and it feels like memorizing all of the “common phrases a tourist might need” is still learning.

For ‘easy songs’ at my level, it’s about 100% understanding. Stuff like Backe Backe Kuchen, or Kopf und Schultern, Knie und Fuß are easy enough for A1 to fully understand.

For ‘hard Songs’ above my level, it’s more about vague understanding. The harder, the more vague I’m allowed to be with it.

Either way, being able to parrot out the song back (even with bad pronunciation + errors) should help me learn new words. I’m actually able to sing substantial parts of Im Walde von Toulouse, but I don’t understand it at all lol.

When I say A2 in this post, it means I’ve given up on full understanding (for now), because I know it’s too hard. I’ll come back for 100% understanding maybe a month or two from now after more vocab practice! A2 is beyond me, but all the A1 songs are stuff I’ve been able to understand.

For some ‘bipolar Songs’ like Nudeltag, I try to get 100% understanding of the days of the week. But Ive given up on trying to understand all the different foods or what’s going on. Parts of this song are A1 appropriate, but other parts are far harder, maybe A2 or even B1 level.

A friend who studied Japanese told me of someone who sounded like Mickey Mouse when talking in English. Apparently that person extensively watched… you guessed it. Mickey Mouse to learn English.

Songs and cartoons are fine learning, but make sure you balance it out with normal stuff! (Newscasts, normal study practice and the like)

Your learning material influences you for sure.

I did attempt some talking in German language Discord, and I was horrified at how bad I am at speaking. It makes sense as it was my first time, but I’m unable to form sentences or phrases even. At best I could shout out one or two words and hope it was on the subject.

I’ve decided that the only fix is to get an in person tutor, to ensure I’m not mute through my studies.

On my song practice, I’ve begun to branch out to real German songs rather than just the Children songs I’ve been working on for months.

Real songs are faster with more complex rhythm, but aren’t always much harder from a vocabulary perspective (!!!).

I found Applaus Applaus: https://youtu.be/H0oRftpQs7w

And I’m picking up enough words that I think I should make this my first real German Song to understand (of even memorize the lyrics to). Many many songs remain far above my level but maybe the huge number of English cognates (Sextant, hammer, etc. etc) is making this one feel approachable.

I probably should write a guide on my songs from A1 to A2. There’s a lot of kidsongs out there and they all have different focuses and help with learning in different ways.

Well that’s the funny part now isn’t it?

Increasingly, the investors are other AI companies. NVidia, Microsoft, Facebook. Be it directly (ie: Microsoft buying half of OpenAI), or indirectly (Special Purpose Vehicle creates a new Data center and Facebook pays to be an owner of that and then the Datacenter pays Facebook for AI or some shit).

From people? No.

From AI. AI companies have seemingly infinite money (not really but investor sentiment is huge and investors are happy giving more and more money to AI). And banks are willing to lend money to AI. And there’s new financial instruments (special purpose vehicle) allowing even more money to come out of investors.

This ends after AI runs out of money. But they are funded by the biggest tech bros with $Trillions in valuation.

80% recall for Young cards. It’s pretty bad for any card 1 day or less, but I guess I’m reasonably confident that 2-day or larger interval cards have very high chance of me recalling.

An hour is a bad day where I need lots and lots of reviews. But it happens sometimes.

Maybe I’m trying too hard to recall without failing myself.

I will say that I am aiming at perfect spelling, pronunciation and gender. So ‘Das Stadt’ is wrong (Die Stadt is the correct Gender). But German is a very precise language and I feel it necessary to drill at least to this level.

I’ve come to the realization that my “20 cards per day” in Anki is only 10 actual words per day, meaning I’m making half as much progress as I thought I was. I’m currently doing about 10 seconds per card, but I’m averaging 30 minutes to even 1-hour per session of ~100 cards these days (somewhere between 180 views to 300 views).

I’d like to increase this to 20 words per day, but honestly its already very grueling, and I don’t want to spend all my freetime each day on Anki. I still haven’t made much progress in Nico’s Weg, Basic German Grammar and Workbook, and Cafe in Berlin / Dino in Germany A1 series. If anything, I need to cut my Anki time down and focus on the other stuff. Maybe when I finish my textbook studies I can go back to increasing Anki to more cards/day.

I did watch Ghosts (German edition) here last night: https://www.ardmediathek.de/serie/ghosts/staffel-1/Y3JpZDovL3dkci5kZS9naG9zdHM/1 . Watching full-speed German comedy for the first time is mind-opening, it shows how “fast” real German can be. I fortunately found some English fansubs + OpenFansubs Firefox plugin that allowed me to watch that sitcom with English subtitles at least. I do plan on watching more German TV to “get used to real life German”.

“Peppa Pig” / Peppa Wutz in German is a commonly recommended Children’s TV Show to test your German. I’ve been trying to watch it each week to gauge my progress, often disheartened at how little I understand. However, various people online have told me that Peppa Wutz might be closer to “late A2” studies or even “early B1 studies”, so that makes me feel better. It does mean that my “schedule” is all out of whack due to lack of understanding. Peppa Pig/Wutz being late A2 means its something I “should” be trying maybe 4 or 5 months into my studies, not something in my 1st or 2nd month.

Still, I’ll keep trying Peppa Pig. “Real German” (even if its slow and for children) is more immersion than most other exercises. But I cannot and should not use it as “comprehensible input” (ie: learning material). The goal of comprehensible input is that you spend maybe 80% to 90% of the time doing something you know, and only learning on those 20% to 10% you don’t know. “Cafe in Berlin” reading material, Nicos Weg, and “Simple German Youtube” are the only stuff that really is “Comprehensible Input” right now.

The “simplest of kids songs” (ie: Backe Backe Kuchen) is comprehensible to me right now, but many kid songs (ie: “Im Walde von Toulouse”) are far, far too difficult for me right now.

Not from 1950, but is at least as old as 1920.

Telephones gained popularity in the 1890s, so I’m not sure how much older this sci-fi concept of poker telephones could have even existed.

The 1920s was when Telephones were entering mainstream use, and no longer an absurdly rich persons toy. The idea of a poker telephone forcing you to work is more working-class mindset, so I find it hard to believe that the idea would come much earlier than 1920.

Note that the technology for wireless radios was popularized in the 1920s as well. Militaries used wireless / radio communications in the 1900s through WW1 but it could only be afforded by Navy and Battleships (the most expensive military equipment). WW1 Tanks used lol semaphore flags for communication !!!

As radio got more popular, the marriage of phone and radio would inevitably come up as a sci concept.

My actual long term goal is to be able to watch Peppe Wurtz and comprehend the episode.

I’ve also got Deutsche Walle A2 News (news graded at the A2 level) that I’m trying to read and watch, but that’s still far above my skill level. I’m better with news than German, so I watch (American) news in English the. Watch the A2 graded news and kinda learn new words lol.

https://learngerman.dw.com/de/kurz-und-leicht/s-69137519

The book was basically the first thing I was able to do (and indeed, level A1 level). Everything else is more like high A2 or low B1 level…

I wouldn’t say that it’s a goal to read Cafe in Berlin, because I’m actively doing it! It’s more of a true and proper exercise.

We are on the 25th month?

Anki is far more grueling than beginners realize. And it’s very difficult to predict future work.

Adding new word isn’t just work today (maybe 5+ viewings to get Anki to make you think you’ve learned the word…), it’s also multiple showings over tomorrow, later this week and more.

You must change your words/day to something that is doable. Keep an eye on your Anki usage, if it’s longer than you want then cut down on your new words/day until you master your current review set.

And always be careful with the new words button. It’s more work to learn 20 words than you might realize, so don’t double or triple it to 40 or 60!!!

20 words/day is about 30 minutes of Anki for me, because 80 reviews + 20 new words == 100 cards. But I need around 300 flips to finish Anki.

That’s 30 minutes of Anki in practice (a card flip averaging 6 seconds, 10 cards per minute and yes 30 minutes/day).

If I drop down to 0 new words/day, I still have the 80 reviews per day (at least until those old words are mastered). Eventually I get quicker and Anki believes I’ve learned the words but it can take literally days before your workload decreases.

You must also remember that Anki / Flashcards is rote memorization. Its your “brute force cudgel”. You can never truly reach mastery with Anki alone. Anki is great for spelling practice, pronunciation practice (if you have included real-world audio .mp3 with your flashcards)… and if necessary is a forced German -> English vocabulary memorization tool.

Useful skills yes, but language mastery can only happen with reading, writing, listening and speaking. Aka: “Immersion”. Anki is great because it helps minimize the time spent on flashcards. If you aren’t saving time but instead feel like you’re wasting time, then you need to change Anki settings to something more useful.

Anki has been used to master Jeopardy, and is also becoming a popular tool in the medical community.

Anki may have been invented for language, but its useful for almost any studying.

Another small note on FSRS settings - adjusting the desired retention a little bit can be helpful. Defaults at 90%, turning it down makes review intervals longer, up makes them shorter. For large decks (vocab lists), I prefer it down at mid-high 80s. You want familiarity, not perfection, so less overwhelming reviews can be better.

Depends really. If you are drilling der/das/die genders and spelling, you might want perfection.

But yes, drop the FSRS setting to 80 or even lower for familiarity. If you are focusing on reading/consuming, it’s better to focus on familiarity instead.

But if you are studying writing/speaking, you need to set that retention back up to 90 and also aim for perfection on each card.

In general, 90% is closer to perfection and the highest you typically should go. However, medical students have been known to aim for 95% or higher (!!!) because they want to pass an exam and then forget about it later, lol.

So even going above 90% makes sense for some communities out there.

Medical students are willing to drill 4-hours per day on their subjects and want near 100% memorization in time for their exam. It’s a different kind of learning, but Anki does support that.

I’m about 1.5 months into my German studies, and I was able to just read the entire first Chapter of “Cafe in Berlin” (beginner story for German-learners, graded A1 and A2).

I think the biggest “leap forward” was multiple weeks of study in Anki, allowing me to reach a vocabulary of roughly 300+ words at the moment. Its not much, but its enough to get started reading these simplest of stories.

Feel free to ask me questions here too! Thanks to Lemmy, I can see posts here as well as in the original topic.

I wish Anki existed during my SAT days.

Do you know hard it was to learn 1000+ SAT words without Anki back then? I had to use like, a book. And index cards written by hand. My hand cramped up just writing all those words down.