#agl

[fashion-boots]

Ella Balinska featured in Schon! Magazine wearing AGL shoes Rei Over The Knee and Letizia ankle booties.

[therunwayarchive]

AGL, Spring 2023

[willow-pond-gemstones]

AGL - Fall 2024

[alex-w0ke]

Actual Gaming Log (April 14-20)

April 14 Arknights. Farmed mats. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April 15 Arknights. Anni day. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. Played the web event. April 16 Arknights. Farmed mats before maintenance hit. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April 17 Got some stuff for free via Fanatical. Arknights. Farmed mats. Not in the mood to check the new chapter yet. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April…

[rigelmejo]

Does anyone know of any articles, forum posts, videos, blogs that have mentioned a person's results studying chinese through automatic language growth (AGL) like a full 1000+ hour course, or comprehensible input lessons? Or even people sharing results after doing the "study 10,000 sentences" method. But I'm most curious how much progress people made studying chinese through chinese input.

There's well known Thai AGL courses (and video lessons on youtube), and there's enough learners i can find some discussion of student results after X years. It sounds like in the thai lessons, students ultimately did pick up correct tones (although some agl teachers prioritized tone specific lessons before doing agl lessons).

I'm curious if in a model of "use only chinese language resources" without explicit pronunciation instruction would actually result in good or even fairly understandable chinese pronunciation, since agl courses (and some comprehensible input courses) insist good pronounciation will simply Result when the student finally feels ready to talk after a lot of input.

A lot of japanese study methods that prioritize input learning, include not needing to try to output (speak) the language until 1000-2000 hours in. And ive seen many of those studiers (Refold Method, AJATT) mention they spent purposeful time on learning pitch accent when they did start outputting. So it seems good natural accent was NOT guaranteed just by learning from lots of japanese input. Now, the AGL method of learning would argue that learning the Refold/AJATT way includes LOTS of translation into ones native language and all of those times would've worsened a learners accent and impacted their automatic language growth in japanese. Basically the agl idea is: when you use your native language, attempt to translate and explain the target language, you come up with imperfect not-quite equivalents so you ingrain many tiny errors into your understanding of the new language. Which makes some sense. You can tell a learner for example "say 2nd tone chinese as if raising voice at the end of a question in english" or "say j like jeep for pinyin ji etc" and the learner will do it like in english... which may be somewhat similar to the chinese but is not the actual chinese sound. AGLs idea is that you learn entirely in the target language, NO translations or approximations, so you learn what things mean and how theyre said by experiencing it. So i would imagine the AGLs method would assume Refold/AJATT learners of COURSE need to study pronunciation eventually, since they heavily relied on translation for at least their initial learning, so they'll have ingrained "similar to target language but not actually correct" habits.

I cant use myself to test results either lol. With french I had initial pronunciation instruction, then did more purposeful pronunciation study 2 years in, and while I know my accent is NOT perfect I am also aware my accent is much better because of the pronunciation study. Because before the 2nd pronunciation study at two years in, my french sounded so bad i could barely identify it AS french myself. And my listening skills were likewise attrocious, i could barely understand spoken french. After that purposeful pronunciation study, i found it much easier to watch french shows and listen to french. I dont think i wouldve even been understandable-to-french speakers except with great struggle, before the pronunciation study. But i learned at first primarily through reading french so to be fair i had very little listening-foundation in french.

With japanese I studied pronunciation specifically to some degree. I have also paid purposeful attention to listening resources. While i assume my pronunciation is NOT perfect, i do feel reasonably confident its understandable. And it generally has been. I took time at the beginning learning specific sounds, and my first teacher way back when in japanese 1 made us SHADOW and graded us on matching the dialogue audio example we shadowed as perfectly as possible. So purposeful pronunciation study was very much a part of it. I havent studied pitch accent, but ive looked it up and try to listen for it. Im not confident on ability to do that correctly and i think its likely im often making mistakes there.

With chinese, i studied pronunciation for 2 months early on, then again for about a month every several months. I even used an app to grade me on pronunciation. And using the app definitely helped me improve in some areas. I still am quite bad in some areas. I am still studying pronunciation. Ive done a ton of listening study, and while i can hear elements of pronunciation, my ability to replicate what i can Hear is not as good as hearing it. So im not sure how that gets improved. Maybe i need to do MANY drills, maybe i just have to talk a Lot more. Still working on it.

Point is, i did use english and translation and pronunciation study materials in ALL study of languages ive done. So i have no idea if AGL, like it says by using only the target language, actually produces a great correct accent. And im curious if tones actually get learned properly, if theres never any formal explanation of them existing or what to listen for. Because even some ALG programs i found mentioned tone drills for thai Before agl classes (at least for some earlier AGL courses that existed). Id also be interested if anyone did AGL/comprehensible input (like Dreaming Spanish videos with no translations) for stuff like spanish or french and described their accent and output after 1000 hours. But id rather see results for languages with tones.

Tldr: AGL lessons theory is your accent will be great, as will your grammar, if you learn only in your target language for 1000-2000 hours before trying to output once you feel naturally you wish to. I am wondering if anyone knows of anything shared they've seen from chinese learners who used only study material in chinese (no native language translation) about the results they had?

[michalicohen]

[palepalelight]

[godblaz]

[reasonsforhope]

“AGL Energy will shut down Australia’s biggest single carbon polluting power plant a decade earlier than planned, changing the closure date of its coal-fired Loy Yang A power station in Victoria from 2045 to 2035.

The company, Australia’s biggest electricity generator and polluter, is accelerating its exit from coal, according to a plan released to the stock exchange [in mid-September]...

AGL predicted it will have the largest portfolio of renewable energy and storage of any listed company in the country. The early closure of Loy Yang A could avoid 200m tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions, the company said...

The Victorian plant supplies about 30% of the state’s electricity and is the biggest single carbon-polluting plant in the country. Nationally, only Origin Energy’s 2,880MW plant – due to shut in 2025 – is larger.

AGL has already shut one of the four units of its Liddell coal-fired power station in the Hunter Valley and will shut the rest of the 1,680MW plant by next April. Bayswater, at 2,640MW, will operate for another six to nine years after Liddell’s closure.” -via The Guardian (US edition), 9/28/22

[mikec137]

Aarau, Switzerland, October 2022

[fashion-boots]

AGL red Rei Over the Knee boots

[therunwayarchive]

AGL, Spring 2023

[willow-pond-gemstones]

AGL - Spring 2024

[alex-w0ke]

Actual Gaming Log (March 31 - April 6)

March 31 Arknights. Farmed the event. Reverse: 1999. Cleared 6’s puzzle events. I may have cried while reading the stories in between. YOU and ME and HER. Got a couple of endings. April 1 Arknights. Farmed the event. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April 2 Arknights. Late anni day. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April 3 Arknights. Farmed mats. Reverse: 1999. Farmed mats. April 4 Arknights.…

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Climate Change News:

Australian software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes made a dramatic $660 million market raid on Australia’s biggest coal generator and polluter AGL this week, vowing to oppose its proposed demerger and fast track its exit from coal.

Grok Ventures, the private investment firm of Cannon-Brookes and his wife Annie, hired brokers to stand in the market late Monday to snap up an 11.28% voting stake, which may be enough to thwart the demerger at the upcoming shareholder meeting in June.

Of all the things that have and will be said about Cannon-Brookes and his landmark siege of AGL, the one that seems to get under his skin the most is the claim that he is the person responsible for the early closure of Australia’s coal generators.

It’s an attack line that is readily deployed by fossil fuel lobbyists and Coalition conservatives, if you’ll excuse the tautology, because there is nothing so easy as throwing darts at someone when you are trying to hide a complete stuff up.

Cannon-Brookes says the last coal unit should be closed by 2035 at the latest, and big efforts made to ensure that the replacement capacity – renewables and storage – is delivered by then.

“There’s a number of reasons we need to get it done,” Cannon-Brookes says.

“Certainly the climate science would say that it needs to be done far more rapidly than the company’s current closure date of 2045. And the financiers would say it needs to be happened far more rapidly than that.

“Find me a model outside of AGL that shows that these plants are in any way able to be run in 2045. There is also the case that… attracting capital requires you nowadays to have a plan that is somewhat aligned to various global climate agreements.

“That would necessitate, in my understanding, 2035 is probably the outside date and you need a really credible plan to say that that’s the last day, when the last unit of the last coal plant will be shut down.”

AGL paints this an extreme position. But it’s not got many supporters of that view.