ALMS project

This is my ALMS (Autonomous Language Learning Module) blog. I will post updates, projects and reflection on my learning process.

[tuulialms]

Reading academic texts

I had to write an analysis in my exegesis class about the book of Daniel (specifically Dan. 12:1-3) and make a 30-minute presentation on Isaiah 53. There are not that many studies or commentaries on those passage in Finnish, so almost all of my sources were in English for both of the assignments.

At first I found it a bit hard to read complex academic texts in English. The sentence structure is often really complicated. Sometimes it almost seems as if the authors forget what they are trying to say mid-sentence and just keep rambling on and on, not even bothering to end the sentence. Also, the vocabulary is something I am not used to. Often they use words I know, but still the meaning seems a bit vague for me. Words like render or expiate made the texts harder for me to read. I could understand the meaning usually by reading the sentence a few times, but the process of deciphering vaguely familiar words really slowed me down.

After a while I got used to the language. I found a strategy for complex sentences: I would divide it to pieces and only focus on the essential parts of the sentence. Then I would add all the other parts in and get the whole picture.

I think just jumping in and using only English sources for my assignments really helped my reading comprehension. I had no other choice, so I had to figure out a way to get through massive amounts of complex academic texts, while still getting all the necessary information. If nothing else, at least now I know I can understand texts in English, even if it’s a bit slower than in Finnish. Using English sources isn’t as daunting now as it was before the assignments.

Reading: + 12,5hrs

[tuulialms]

Conversation group, 11th meeting

(21st of April)

This was my last conversation group meeting. We talked about traveling mostly, where we have been and where we would like to go. Also languages were a topic, as always. We talked about how in some countries it’s hard to get by with only English, but in other places you can manage without knowing the local languages. 

Overall, my experience with the group was great. It boosted my confidence a lot! Now I know I can actually communicate fairly well in English, even about complex topics such as religion or philosophy. I’ve also learned a lot from the other members of the group. We all have such different interests, so each of us has knowledge and vocabulary that they can teach the others.

Conversation group: +2hrs

[tuulialms]

Cafe Lingua, 4th and 5th visit

(4th and 11th of April)

I’ve become a regular at Cafe Lingua during the last month. I can’t believe how nervous I was the first time I went there, and now everything comes really naturally. I feel like my English has improved so much, I don’t freeze or feel uncomfortable speaking anymore!

I got the exchange student from our conversation group to come to Cafe Lingua with me. It’s been really nice to get to know him better as well as introducing him to people I know from Lingua.

Lately the topics have shifted from religious and philosophical discussions to more of a general small talk territory. There are so many new people each time I go to Cafe Lingua, that I find myself spending hours just getting to know people I might never meet again. I’ve met a professional poker player from the U.S., a Uruguayan guy who studies Swedish and a Russian designer. It’s amazing to hear all their stories, how and why they came to Finland and what they’re doing with their life. It has also taught me to understand different accents better.

Speaking: +9hrs

[tuulialms]

Conversation group, 9th and 10th meetings

(31st of March and 7th of April)

Even though our group was supposed to end after the 8th meeting, we decided to keep going. Our group works really well together and I think we all have improved tremendously.

There are two new members in our group. On the first meeting we were split up into two groups, and since the other group decided to quit, we took the two women into our group. That’s why the last two meetings have consisted mostly of getting to know each other. It has been interesting, though, because the new members are a bit older compared to the rest of our group, and so they have different experiences and points of view.

The new members have kids who are teenagers, so we’ve talked a lot about our teenage years. It’s interesting to hear about the differences between our experiences. We’ve also talked about our fields of study and what we’d like to do with our degrees.

I’m really glad I joined the group, so far it has been a great experience, both socially and learning-wise.

Conversation group: +4hrs

[tuulialms]

Cafe Lingua, 2nd and 3rd visit

(14th and 21 of March)

Cafe Lingua has become one of my favorite things in Helsinki. You always meet new people and find new topics to discuss, so it’s always an interesting experience.

The last few times I’ve been to Cafe Lingua, we’ve had some serious discussions about religion, philosophy and education. The pros and cons of being religious have come up many times, and it never fails to bring up a lot of emotions and different points of view. We also talked about whether or not to teach religion/religious studies in school.

We’ve also delved into metaphysics. I was really proud of myself for being able to convey my thoughts about the topic in English. It wasn’t easy, but I found that I’m able to speak even about complex topics in another language.

Speaking: +8,5hrs

[tuulialms]

Conversation group, 7th and 8th meetings

(10th and 17th of March)

Our conversations have started to flow quite naturally. We don’t really need to come up with specific topics, usually we just start talking about our lives or current events and the conversation keeps going by itself. 

Because of the Australian exchange student, languages and cultures are topics we keep coming back to. He’s learning Finnish, so we’ve talked about the differences in languages and the process of learning a new language. Same goes for our cultures. There are so many differences in education and life overall, so it’s always interesting to talk about our experiences growing up in Finland or Australia.

Conversation group: +4hrs

[tuulialms]

Conversation group, 6th meeting

This time we had a few articles to talk about.

The first article was about a young woman who had made an art project by pretending to be a stereotypical “Instagram girl” through social media. We had a long conversation about our use of social media, how identity is presented through social media and the limitations of art. 

The second article was about animals, their cultures, emotions and intelligence. We talked about animal rights and how humans have elevated themselves, thinking that other species don’t have similar emotional lives.

The last article was about the international women’s day. The conversation was cut a bit short because our time was up, but we talked a bit about if women’s day is necessary for equality or if it’s just an excuse for flowers and chocolate.

Overall, the conversations were good as always. It was less natural though, because of the articles, but I guess that was quite refreshing for a change.

Conversation group: +2hrs

[tuulialms]

An Anthropologist on Mars: short audiobook review

(8th of March)

An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales is a book by Oliver Sacks, a British neurologist. In the book he tells seven stories about his former patients and other neurologically atypical people he has met over the years. 

Sacks has an ability make complex neurological disorders fairly easy to understand even for a reader who has no prior knowledge on the subject. It is obvious that he is a brilliant writer and a great neurologist, but first and foremost, he is a storyteller. An Anthropologist on Mars is not what you would expect from a non-fiction book on neuroscience: the stories are fantastical and full of the same wonder Sacks seems to have about his patients. 

Some of the stories are almost poetic in their irony. Sacks tells the story of a surgeon with severe Tourette’s, and his intense concentration on his work is the only way to control the tics. Another case is that of a blind man, who dies in part as a consequence of getting his sight back. And my favorite, the colorblind painter. He loses all sense of color through a car accident and discovers a whole new way of seeing the world, art and himself as an artist.

The book was harder to follow than most of the things I listen to. Sacks is not only British but also a scientist, so his vocabulary is quite different from my usual audiobooks and podcasts. I had to really concentrate on some of the scientific terms, but I still managed without looking the words up, trying to figure them out from the context. Sacks also seems to be a fan of complicated sentence structures, so that was difficult for me at times. Overall, the book was enjoyable and I think it was a helpful exercise for my listening skills.

Listening: +12hrs

Writing: +0,5hrs

[tuulialms]

Café Lingua, #1

(7th of March)

Today I went to Café Lingua for the first time in my ALMS journey. I’d been there once before, but it had been months. 

I was really surprised how small the English speaking table was, there was only five people in total. Four of us were Finnish speakers, one had Hindi as his native language. 

The conversation was surprisingly similar compared to our conversation group. We talked mostly about philosophy, languages and religion. I noticed I had a hard time finding the right words at times, even when talking about religion which I should know the most vocabulary about. The other speakers were more fluent than some people from our conversation group, so maybe that made me freeze a bit. Also the environment wasn’t the best, it was a bit loud and I had to speak louder than I’m used to. Still, I’m a bit disappointed in my speaking abilities today. But even though I wasn’t as fluent as I usually am, I kept trying and ended up having a four-hour conversation with complete strangers, so that’s not nothing.

Speaking: +4hrs

[tuulialms]

App translation

(4th of March)

This week I decided to do something useful with my ALMS time. So, I dug up an old project I used to volunteer for. I’ve been translating a calendar application, SolCalendar, from English to Finnish, but never completed the work. 

When I started translating, I had some experience in making Finnish subtitles for some educational YouTube videos, so I thought this would be a piece of cake. But the translating turned out to be harder than I thought, with all the technical terms, different tones, and worst of all, the small space I had to work with. So basically I had to research terms I knew only in English and try to find a Finnish equivalent, try to make the phrases sound natural and do all that in much fewer words that I’m used to. I think the process was helpful, though: it really forced me to analyze the meaning of English phrases I see all the time on my smartphone and online. I mostly understand what they mean, but only vaguely, so I don’t actively use the phrases and words. For example, the word briefing was really hard to translate. I also found out I’ve misunderstood the word precipitation all wrong. I knew it had something to do with weather, but I thought it meant something like humidity. Whoops.

Translation: +2,5 hrs

[tuulialms]

My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain: reading along with an audiobook

(24th of February)

Having become a bit wiser from the experience with the podcast-read-along, I decided to try out reading along with an audiobook instead. I chose Patricio Pron’s My Fathers’ Ghost Is Climbing in the Rain, since I already own a physical copy of the book and had never gotten around to reading it.

As predicted, the exercise was much more helpful than with a podcast. In the Audible app there’s actually a feature that allows you to slow the pace of the book, so it was easier to follow along. With the pace slowed down a notch, I found the reading to be quite an interesting experience. I’ve listened to a dozen of audiobooks in the last year, so I guess I’ve developed a sense of the usual mannerisms in the voice actors’ intonation and pace. It was interesting to see how naturally some of the intonation came to me. Sometimes I was completely off, though, which can be expected when reading a text for the first time and doing it aloud.

I feel like the audio helped me to find the right rhythm and intonation. I also learned to pronounce a few words, namely allocate and sive – although the latter is more that I knew the word just from hearing it and had never seen it written before.

Speaking: +1 hour

[tuulialms]

Conversation group, 3rd and 4th meetings

(18th and 25th of February)

The conversation group is wonderful. I feel like our group has really “clicked”, our conversations flow really naturally. We’ve decided to just talk about what’s going on in our lives, anything that comes to mind really. Our interests are quite different, but that’s what makes it interesting. There’s some banter and a lot of joking. It’s also good that we have a native speaker in our group, he has helped us with difficult words and pronunciation. For example, at today’s meeting I learned to pronounce the words “bourgeois” and “exegesis”.

For the last two meetings, we’ve talked about our everyday lives, our studies and some current events. We had a heated discussion on religion, which was really fascinating. We come from different backgrounds and have different worldviews, which sometimes creates some conflict, but it’s all in good nature. We also discussed different languages and the learning process.

All in all, the group is amazing and I don’t even hesitate anymore about speaking English.

Conversation group: +4 hours

[tuulialms]

“Shadowing” a podcast

(12th of February)

I wanted to practice my pronunciation and intonation, so I decided to follow my teacher’s advice and try to “shadow” someone speaking. The teacher suggested reading along to an audiobook, but I haven’t yet found any books that I could get my hands on both the audio and regular texts versions. So, I figured I could shadow a podcast with a transcript. I chose my favorite podcast, The Mental Illness Happy Hour, and decided on an episode I had recently listened to. (http://mentalpod.com/Maria-Bamford-podcast) That way I already had some idea of the topics discussed and also could anticipate the pace and rhythm of the episode.

Since both the host and the guest are native speakers, they talk quite fast. I thought it would be best to read along to the host Paul Gilmartin’s lines only. I already know how he talks, the pace, different emphases and his usual tone, so it helped a bit in following along. 

The exercise was harder than I expected. Especially in the beginning I felt weird speaking along to a podcast and the pace was faster than I thought. The more I did it, though, the easier it got. 

It was hard to follow the pace at times, since the podcast is an actual conversation, so it’s not as steady as, say, an audiobook would be. I think it has it’s advantages, too. Most audiobooks’ language is more classy, a bit pretentious even, with it’s overly clear pronunciation and fancy words. Podcasts have more of an authentic feel to them, something that is way more useful in a normal conversation. I think this helped me to find a way to speak faster, not over-analyzing my pronunciation and just going with my gut feeling.

Although this was a positive experience, I think I’ll try to do a chapter from an audiobook next time. It should be easier to follow and might help more with my pronunciation and intonation.

Speaking: +2 hours

[tuulialms]

Conversation group

Our conversation group has now met two times, on the 4th and the 11th of February. So far the group seems great. We’re quite balanced as a group, everyone talks roughly the same amount and the conversation flows pretty naturally. There’s also an exchange student from Australia in our group. His accent and faster way of speaking makes the group more challenging, which is good in my opinion.

I’ve been thinking about what I will gain from this group. The most obvious thing is confidence in speaking. I feel like seeing other people make the same mistakes and being on the same level as me is quite helpful. I’m not as nervous as I was at our first meeting, so I can only imagine how much my confidence will improve in a few more meetings.

I think the group will broaden my vocabulary as well. I mostly know all of the words we use, but have never had to use them in an actual conversation. That’s why it’s really good the groups are made up of people from different faculties. I never even thought of speaking about Economics or Scandinavian literature in English.

Conversation group: +4 hours