The Babbel experiment - continued

I'm going to Spain in two weeks - can't wait! I really need this holiday as I am really tired - too tired to study Arabic, so I'm focusing on Spanish for now. I'm continuing the Babbel experiment and listening to some Coffee Break Spanish while traveling to work.

So, as goals should be, among others, measurable, I diecided it was time to evaluate my Spanish. I googled "evaluate your Spanish" and took this test. I got 34% and learned I was a beginner. 34% isn't bad if it means that I already know a third of whatever there is to know and that made me optimistic. Until Boyfriend messaged me:

I got 37%.

Hell didn't know my fury. Mr I'm glad you're learning Spanish because that means I don't have to scored higher than me. Okay, he is smart, I wouldn't date him otherwise, but did that mean that all my work gave no results?

I marked B everywhere.

Boyfriend explained. What a relief! My translator summer job was saved. I could be proud of myself again.

Now I'm back to learning as mush Spanish as I can until I'm home.

I Twitter!

Twitter. It's everywhere now. I couldn't have missed me, could it?

Basically, Twitter is like a blog, but there is a140 character limit, which makes it more suitable for some uses.

I first thought Twitter had only two uses:

1. reporting details of your life nobody cares about, like "I just went to the bathroom and made the biggest... mistake ever reporting about it".
2. losing weight publicly (or tracking any other goal).
   

And then Penelope Trunk blogged about Twitter and some people called it a "new technology". That's two very wrong things.

First, Penelope Trunk. I like reading her career advice blog, but I don't really trust her advice. She writes not to post one's naked pictures on the web - what a wisdom! A few months later, a guest blogger called "Google Guy" writes: "Those photos don’t matter as much as you think". She gives "advice at the intersection of work and life" but is getting divorced and blames it on the fact that her husband stayed at home with the kids. And she twitters:

Asking my therapist: on my blog post about kissing the farmer, should I leave the comments from my not-yet ex?

(Want some advice at the intersection of love and life? Don't let your marriage fall apart. Don't blame divorce on a single bad decision. Don't kiss when you're involved with someone else. Don't kiss a guy when all you can say about him is "the farmer". Don't give intimate details to thousands of readers. Do hide the lame stuff.)

Second, "new technology". Twitter is a bit like a blog, but with shorter posts (who forbid you to write shorties before?) and a bit like your info on your instant messenger (except it's logged better). You gotta give me a lot more to call something "new technology".

Okay, so that was me and Twitter two days ago. Until my dearest Lifehacker gave me great inspiration. I added a few Twitters on the side of the blog and found more smart uses to the thing. But the biggest thing is: I have starter my own one! It's a combination of goal-tracking, note-taking and bookmark-managing and it's dedicated to learning languages. I'm just starting the summer holidays (and work on Monday!), so I'm trying to plan language learning for this summer. I was thinking about setting up a new blog for it, like Lila Loves Yoga, but a blog is too much work, so let's all welcome the new Twitter: Lila Loves Lingos.

TV is dead because the web is way too cool

I almost don't watch TV. Sincerely, with all the great stuff the web has to offer nowadays, it's really hard to make time for something as primitive as TV.

First, I'm learing Java. So, both my Firefoxes (one under Windows and one under Ubuntu) have a dozen of tabs with Java documentation opened.

Second, I'm learing Spanish. I only spend about 10 minutes a day on Babbel, but I know that any other language course is close at hand (and I miss my dear Arabic).

I think you can see a pattern emerging here: I love learning. I think one ofn the greatest things to have is a cool skill. I wish I was able to do a cartwheel for example. Well, for skills like that, there's WikiHow.

I'm interested in security, but never had a class about it. My school now has a new program in computer science and there is a security course. Reason for jealousy? Absolutely not! There also is a new site with all the content of all the classes, so I just downloaded and printed some pdfs and here we are - the security knowledge is mine!

Still hungry for knowledge? Check this Metafilter thread for tons and tons of cool educative videos.

Now I'm set for at least a dozen of lifetimes of browsing the web. TV is dead.

On my wishlist: a few CDs

First, Amy Studt's new album "My paper made men" was just released yesterday.

She released an album called "False Smiles" a few years ago that had great teenage lyrics (and great music as well - Amy's parents are both musicians and she can play 3 instruments: the guitar, the piano, and something else I don't remember). Now I have grown out of teen stuff, but so has she. The LA Times said to "ignore any dim memories of her midteens pop phase a while ago", so the albums seems great (as you can tell from the singles).

Now I just have to get this album somehow. So far, it's only been released on UK iTunes, let's see if it lets me download it and if I can play the files on my Nokia 770, which is clearly not an iPod. Until now the only mp3 I have bought over the internet were Paramore's albums from the Fueled by Ramen store, which was a very positive experience: no one care which country I was from, as long as I could pay by PayPal, my technical issues were fixed within hours, and I got plain and simple mp3 files, which is exactly what I wanted.

Another important position on my wishlist, Primsleur's Arabic course:

I found it through this Metafilter thread, and the reviews are very enthousiastic (more on Primsleur's approach here). According to their site, it's what spies use to survive and cope overseas, and the courses are now used by the FBI, CIA, and business professionals everywhere. Plus, the approach is scientific, which is illustrated by this picture:

Geeks love scientific stuff and know nothing more convincing than the picture of a man dressed in white looking though a microscope to find a scientific way of teaching languages. I'm buying it.

They offer two versions: Eastern and Egyptian Arabic. So far, I've been learning Modern Standard Arabic, but here, I'd choose Egyptian. Another Metafilter thread clarifies this issue.

[Pictures source, source.]

The Babbel experiment

I mentioned a few days ago that I started learning Spanish on Babbel.com. Here's more about me, languages and Babbel.

First, I never ever learned Spanish. However, I speak fluently French and that helps a lot. I also speak Polish and German and the more languages you know, the easier the next one is.

Second, I don't like Spanish. It's about my taste and how Spanish sounds. It's something absolutely subjective. Speaking of subjective, my favourite language of all is Arabic.

Third, I know learning a language requires time and commitment. (Except for French for me, which I learned "just like that" when I moved to France at the age of six, lucky bastard that I am.) And grammar exercises and writing and stuff. I did all of that for Arabic in July, when I took an intense class (20 hours a week).

Second and third imply that I'm not really willing to do all of that for Spanish. So here's the experiment: how far can one go with Babbel?

I will not claim that Babbel is the best language learning site ever. It makes you learn words and sentences and lets you meet people to study some language with. No grammar - I rely on my analytical mind here, but the sentences are not very complicated, so my grammar won't go far. No writing - I will only be able to use the structure of the sentences I will have learned, or I will risk being gravely misunderstood.

Babbel is also not the only site of the kind. If you wish to learn a new language, you should consider the following: LingQ, Livemocha and Mango Languages. For example, LingQ does have writing and grammar exercises, even corrected by a teacher if you pay for it. But me not paying.

So why did I pick Babbel? "Picked" is not the word, I started using it before I found out about the others. But I did stick with it, and here's why.

Learning a language should be a pleasure. Like any other thing, if you don't like it, you won't do it very efficiently and will most probably give up. Babbel is cute and shiny and has colorful pictures, so I enjoy it a lot. Let's also not forget that I'm still very busy (and will be until June), I'm tired in the evenings and I enjoy the fact that I don't have to do a lot on Babbel.

So here's what I do. Every other day (I try that to be everyday), I go to Babbel and select a module. I do the exercises on-line, but also write down the words and the sentences in a copybook, so I can revise it in spare moments, like when on a train. I'm curious to see how far I can go with that.

If you're interested in learning a new language, here's a good article to start with.

Geek ends the week (happily)

I haven't posted much since Monday, day 1 of a tough week. Here's what I've been up to meanwhile.

Day 2. OS study-party. Few were allowed to participate in this exclusive, invite-only event. (I couldn't just say I had a study buddy over, could I? Nor could as just say "friend" now, there is no rhyme in "friend".)

Day 3. OS study after-party. I love after-parties. Never been to one actually, except for this one. Still, I love them.

Day 4. Morning: studying for the OS exam. Afternoon: Taking the exam. I didn't do bad, but I'm not sure I'm gonna pass either.

Day 5. Playing the Sims 2. My boyfriend bought me the newest expansion pack, "Free time". Now, you know you're a geek when your Sims can play "the Sims 3" and you wonder how deep this recursion goes. Or you make a list of the bugs and the usability issues. Or you pick a different language while installing the add-on just to see what happens. (That's a great idea, by the way, as soon as I have revised my French a bit, I'm switching to German.)

Day 6. Staying at my boyfriend's. We went for a walk as the weather was great and later to the swimming pool. Yep, I've really been lacking sport recently.

Day 7. Staying at home and doing lots of stuff that had been pushed away for quite a long time, like making back-ups. By the way, do you know how great ImgBurn is? I used to have Nero and it kept screwing my blank CDs. ImgBurn is the man! (I mean the app.)

Okay, life is getting almost normal. How awesome is normal?

Geek starts new week

Another tough week is starting. This one has two exams on the menu that I have to take again: semantics and operating systems. I'm still waiting for my operating systems lab scores and hope they will be high enough.

So, day 1 of 7, I went to today's classes and took the semantics exam. I was way better prepared this time and solved all the problems. That's a good start.

Right now, it's the evening, I'm too tired to study (the operating systems are on Thursday). So I went to Babbel.com and started studying Spanish. As I'm going to Spain in the summer, the lesson "vacaciones al mar" was an obvious choice.

Now, top priority, those operating systems. I don't wanna have to re-take the test in September and have my vacaciones al mar ruined.