the liminal

I have continued to pluck away at my Duolingo and Memrise and Māori Made Easy work.

The folks affiliated with Motherfócloir have started giving us Duolingo homework again–which is great, except the homework does not have an aligned lesson about what is being learnt (and assessed). This week’s was absolute objects. I could probably figure what that means 😉 I’ve continued progressing through the formal curriculum at my own pace. My overall strategy is to get through the first two levels across the course, then do all the 3s and 4s, then 5s. Mind, I blasted through all 5 levels at the beginning of the course…

Memrise is proving to be a great self-regulated tool for my te reo learning. The hegemonic way it enforcing macron refinement is also awesome. I have noticed my tendency to “hear” some macroned vowels as French vowels with an accent aigu. é rather than ē, in particular. Must work on that more.

The workbook formatted Māori Made Easy is proving excellent for doing some offline revision. After week three there’s no audio until the end of the first kete, but that’s OK for now.

These last couple of weeks have reminded me that I need to be cautious about how I use rote learning/drills. I very much have an inclination to robotically blast through at a surface level–which is why repeat drilling is so critical for me. Paradoxically, when it comes to things like lenition I need to do the opposite: just let the drills sort of wash over me without struggling to mindfully think of lenition. My experience with learning French taught me that I can just keep feeding my brain with examples and practice and my brain will start to building meaning and sense on a more intuitive level. Working around the liminal space, in other words. I wonder the extent to which others find that?

Next week we have our in-person assessment for Wānanga kete 2. I feel much more prepared for this than the last one!

Ten weeks from now I’ll be in Dublin!