☆❀☆

+ Washed my car. I really should do it more often. It doesn't take that much time to do, and honestly, even just spraying it down makes it come out pretty good. It's kind of a rustbucket, so I guess there is a part of me that thinks "Eh, what's the point?" when it comes to washing it, but... thee dirt was getting pretty ridiculous, and I should at least make sure the windows are clean. We've got a couple of muddy months to go.

+ Took some extra books to the nearest Little Library. Two of the books that I took there last time, over a month ago, are still there. Disappointing; it's much nicer when someone picks them up. Oh, well. Maybe once more of the snow is gone things will circulate more.

+ Took myself out for sushi because I was craving sushi. It's not something that I would want to make a habit of, but I'm glad I indulged it. I had wanted nigiri for some reason, even though it's not my usual choice, so I got one of their variety deals. Now I've probably had enough of it to satisfy myself for a while.

+ Worked on Norwegian a little. And by that I mean I tried to do some reading. It's... challenging, like walking through knee-high snow. I have this one novel in Norwegian, and I tried reading the first page. It was kind of challenging; I got the gist but there were a lot of words I don't know. I think I might start a project where I read through just a page, and write down the words that I don't know in a notebook. That might help.

+ There have been times when I thought that my interest in Norwegian was primarily fuelled by my fondness for the Hetalia character, but I think now I can safely say that this isn't the case. I just really like it. The sentence structure, the way the words sound. It's nice. It's really nice.

+ I spent some time today not feeling great. I think the depression is getting to me again. I'm just not feeling very good. Kind of listless and, like, it's hard to find motivation to do anything. All the things that I have to do still get done, but it's hard to find, like, joy. Spark. That kind of thing.

I haven't been feeling very chatty at all lately. It's not that nothing has been happening - it's more that everything feels like sludge. It doesn't help that we've had -30C windchill for several days in a row! But, well. Anyway.

+ I finished sorting out all of my yarn today. I put together a big spreadsheet, and I catalogued everything on Ravelry, with photos. Hopefully now I'll be able to keep track of everything. I discovered a few kits that I had purchased and never started, so that was interesting. Will get to those in good time.

Also found an abandoned project that, at the time, I'd been very pessimistic about, but I feel differently now - I think I might try to finish it. Maybe. (I'd been working from a pattern in a language I don't speak, and had to restart it several times, and was frustrated. But when I look at it now, I actually did a pretty good job; worth picking up again at some point.)

I'd been wanting to knit something for Tik, and now I'll be able to do that, now that I know what I have. It was hard to decide on a project when I had no clue what was available for me to work with.

+ The local library has the Sailor Moon manga. I picked it up on a whim, and I've been enjoying it quite a bit. When I was a kid, I loved the dubbed anime, and revisiting the series in the manga form is pretty interesting, because there's familiarity and nostalgia, but the pace is different and so on.

Previously, my only exposure to the manga was a volume I borrowed from an art club acquaintance in high school; I remember having a hard time getting into it at the time, partly because Usagi's name was translated to "Bunny" and it bugged me in a way that was trivial but impossible to ignore. I'm glad the new translation just calls her Usagi.

...Anyway, yeah, this is fun. I'm going to keep reading it until I run out of volumes, I think. I kind of want to revisit the anime, too, because the library also has that, but I'm not sure how it would hold up. :Va

+ An acquaintance recently sent me a volume of Olav H. Hauge's poetry. It's a Norwegian collection of his work, no translations. This brings me great joy - I love this guy's work, so it's nice to have it in the original. Plus, while I do like my facing translation editions, reading his work på norsk in this book will require me to actually read it - without cheating by glancing at the English.

It's very challenging, partially because of the dialect and partially because it's poetry, and I expect I'll be reaching for a NO->EN dictionary a lot (and probably also combing wiktionary for help with the very dialect-y bits) but that's fine. I've been kind of neglecting Norwegian for Polish as of late, so it's been nice to pick something up and realize that I can still read it.

+ It's only Monday and I'm already looking forward to the weekend, bleurrrrgh. Man, why does all my time have to get taken up with work?! (Don't answer that.)

+ The local literary magazine has extended the submissions deadline for the next issue. I'm kind of tempted to write something, but do I have the capability to throw some poetry together before it's over? Probably not. (Then again, you never know.)

+ One of my acquaintances (Haiz) shared a poem they wrote. It's in Norwegian, and you can read it here. Three things: 1. I was able to understand most of it without looking anything up. 2. It's pretty good, or at least I think so. 3. I was able to understand it well enough to realize that it's pretty good.

So, yeah, that delights me quite a lot. I'll have to give it another read-over when I'm less tired (or two or three); this thing has some great texture and I don't have the brain capacity to give it the attention it deserves at the moment.

So, though Norway's entry for Eurovision 2021 is in English, there's also a Norwegian version of the song, Ut av mørket. Personally, I like this version better than the English version, Fallen Angel. But then again, I love the way Norwegian language sounds, even when it's a cheesy song, so... bias, what bias. ;)

Anyway, the point is, I was curious to see if the Norwegian lyrics are the same as the English ones, so I grabbed the sangtekst på norsk and translated it. :'D Verdict: The gist is the same, but the actual lines are definitely different!

It's been a long time since I did anything with any material in Norwegian other than formal exercises and Duolingo stuff, so... thanks, TIX, for getting me to study a little, I guess?

Norwegian lyrics under the cut, and my slightly clunky translation follows:

( Ut av mørket )
( Out of the dark )

Aha, Duolingo has added two new voices into its system for the Norwegian course!

I have the audio comprehension lessons turned off, but I still get the text read out to me by the robot voices on many of the lessons. The new voices sound so much more natural. Still obviously not real people, but the pronounciation is better, and the flow sounds more like actual Norwegian.

People were commenting on that flow, and I find the reactions/surprise to it kind of funny. Obviously, real people don't talk quite exactly like that, but... Yes, that's close to how it is.

I've heard Norwegian language described as sounding "sprightly", and I think that's a good word for it. It's springy, kind of bouncy, and the effect can make it sound oddly cheerful even when the subject isn't, or like someone's asking a question even when they aren't. It's one of the things that I like about the way it sounds (and one of the things in speech that I'd never be able to do myself if I actually tried speaking it).

Anyway, it's almost enough for me to turn on the audio comprehensions. Not quite, though. ;) But it is a reminder that I should seek out more audio-centric sources, because my current listening abilities are uh, not good.

I've been using Clozemaster for a while now, and decided to give some thoughts on it.

Clozemaster is a language-learning site. In a typical lesson, it provides a sentence with one of the words blanked out, and a translation underneath, and you need to select the correct word in your target language from four options. There is also a more advanced form of this that allows you to type the word in instead.

It has a lot more language options than Duolingo does, both for learning from English and learning from other languages. For example, it offers Estonian, Cantonese, and Tagalog from English, and Arabic from French, and so on. I can't speak to the quality of anything other than Norwegian from English, though.

I don't think I would use this one to start from the beginning with a language unless I had few other options. The format relies on you knowing most of the vocabulary already; it's better for review than for learning new material.

There is a course for learning French from Norwegian, and I was thinking about trying that, but at this point my Norwegian is much, much better than my French, and I think I would struggle with it. Going to have to sit on that idea for a while.

One issue that I have with this site is that, at least in the EN-NO course, a lot of the sentences it provides are kind of casual, and they don't precisely match the translation that is provided. In some ways, this is a good thing, because it requires slowing down and really reading the sentences properly to make sure you know what they're saying. But it means that it could cause difficulties for somebody trying to learn new words rather than review old ones.

For example, one of the sentences it gave me translated roughly to "It must have cost you a lot of money", with the word kostet being the one that was missing in the sentence. But the English translation provided was "You must have spent a lot of money on it". The sense is the same, but the actual words are different, and just like in English the words in Norwegian for cost and spent are different (kostet vs brukt).

Obviously, this isn't a problem if somebody already knows this vocabulary and is taking their time with the lessons. But it's one of the reasons I'd be hesitant to suggest this site for learning, or as a Duolingo alternative. It's better to pick it up after you've played around with a language a little.

There have also been times when the "correct" answer was different from the word that I know, and I've been left unsure as to whether it was a synonym, a regionalism, or either Clozemaster or my knowledge was incorrect. But that's on me - I should be looking up the details when I encounter those cases.

I do love its review option, though. Its spaced repetition works in a similar way to Anki flashcards - once it's clear that you know a word, you don't have to review it all the time.

Tl;dr: I think Clozemaster is great for reviewing a language that you already have some familiarity with, and I would recommend it for that. I wouldn't necessarily suggest it for anything else.

Norwegian is frying my brain right now.

( Simple past + transitive/intransitive of 'henge' )

I completed the Norwegian course on Duolingo today. Yay!

Earlier this year, there was an announcement that Version 4 of the Norwegian course would be slowly rolling out. Toward the end of the year, probably everyone will be switched over to the new course, which is even longer than Version 3. For now, the version 4 users are maybe 75% of existing users and all new users. I'm still on Version 3 - so, I decided to try to complete it before the course switches over.

Completing the course doesn't mean that you'll be competent in Norwegian; I can still confidently say that I suck at it. Like all of the courses on Duolingo, it's absolutely necessary to study in other ways outside of the course too. But I'm pretty sure that Duo has helped my reading, at the very least.

☆ What the Norwegian course on Duolingo can do:

+ It will expose you to a wide variety of vocabulary.
+ It'll force you to think about Norwegian for at least a few minutes every day.
+ It provides a lot of lessons to go through. Norwegian is one of the longest courses on Duolingo, and unlike some of the newer courses, you're unlikely to finish this course quickly unless you have enough knowledge to Test Out of some levels.
+ If you read the Tips and Notes sections, the grammar explanations are usually relatively easy to understand.
+ The Tips and Notes sometimes contain neat cultural tidbits, too.
+ The Course Volunteers are very dedicated to working on the course and helping people out in the Sentence Discussions.
+ If you look at Duome stats, it can help you decide on some kind of spaced repetition plan, which is pretty useful considering the course is so long. If you're unfamiliar with it, you can check your progress stats here: duome.eu/YOURUSERNAME/progress

☆ Things the Norwegian course is not great for:

+ It will not make you fluent (obviously).
+ Like most other Duo courses, there isn't much focus on "tourist language" (understanding directions, ordering in restaurants, etc). I'd tentatively suggest Pimsleur for this kind of thing.
+ I have heard that the audio comprehension lessons are rather bad/the robot voice audio provides incorrect pronunciations. Obviously any robot voice is not going to be a good substitute for a real person, but since I've heard more than one Norwegian user mention this, I figure it's worth noting.
+ This course is bokmål only and does not cover nynorsk. For most users this isn't an issue, but anyone who does want to learn nynorsk will have to look elsewhere. Discussion on the forums has indicated that the course volunteers had wanted to add a bonus nynorsk Skill, but weren't able to do it.
+ Like a lot of languages on the site, the Norwegian course does not have Duolingo Stories.
+ Duolingo has greatly reduced the number of lessons required to get up to Crown 5 on each skill, so less repetition is needed in order to complete every Skill and gild your tree. But obviously, this isn't limited to the Norwegian course.

And now I can look forward to going through all of the new information in Version 4 of the course when it rolls over for me. :) In the meantime, I'm going to work on bringing up all the Skills to Crown 3 at the very least. Probably won't be able to actually gild the whole tree before the switch.

I might also try a different site/application for Norwegian, but I haven't decided which one yet. I'm considering taking a look at Memrise, Drops, and Clozemaster. ...Maybe I'll just give all of them a go and see which works best.

( Norsk )
( English version )

/slaps a gold "I TRIED" star on everything

The thing about the Duo forums is that occasionally people will reply to you in a language that you're learning, especially if you have a high level in one of them. And usually I'm too nervous to answer in Norwegian, but today I figured, why not. It was in a conversation about using newspapers for learning, so I knew most of the words that I needed anyway (...mostly), which helped.

I suppose it also helps when you are so bored during your work lunch that you suddenly lose inhibitions and cease to be embarrassed if you make mistakes. ;) One of the things that keeps me from writing in Norwegian is "Oh no, I'll make mistakes, how embarrassing!" Though probably an even bigger thing is that a lot of the time I don't know all of the words for what I want to say, so I keep having to look stuff up, so it takes five minutes to write a single sentence... Ah, well. Practice, practice, practice. ;V

Also: I discovered that the Norsk course is one of the longest courses on that site; perhaps even the actual longest. Which explains a few things about why it has taken me forever to get to my current position, haha.