Komma’s Log: Focus on French

[Komma]

It's been a while and my focus was more on exams than on language study. Also I kind of drifted towards Japanese instead of Spanish and French

I've been reading 'Fluent Forever' and actually really like the way he uses flashcards, although skipping too many days is my main problem. And I needed some time to set up those cards. My lectures are now over and that means that I could use some of my extra time between exam preps for more language study.

French/Spanish
Like I said, I took a small break from Spanish and French again and read the whole fluent forever book. I think I'm going to take the flashcard ideas from there for my own cards. It's an interesting approach, though I won't take it as my only method, because I'm sure I get bored with it. But I like the idea to reduce the translation from my cards, though I probably won't stop it completely. It always depends on the vocab/sentence.

Next Up:

• take up Assimil french and spanish
• make Anki cards from the most frequent/relevant words in Spanish and French (for the latter it's worth looking through wyners list and see whether I know all the words or not)
• make pronunciation cards for some minimal pairs and special sounds (also for english this might be interesting, although I just might do these pronunciation cards as I come along words I don't know the pronunciation of. Here I also did the minimal pair /æ/ and /e/ where I noticed that I've had some problems although I learn and use english for more than 10 years now)
• chose some mnemonic pictures for gender in spanish and french
• read the parts about sentence cards/grammar cards again, so I can implement this while doing Assimil and going throught the grammar I encounter there in my grammar spotlights or when I go through the grammars I have (for the latter I got the 'Große Lerngrammatik' for french and spanish by the hueber. It seems very good so far)
• Go through the phrasebooks I got and see whether there is something useful I want to learn

(Note: these are not really goals or to do's with a specific end date, but just some steps I consider doing)

Japanese
I take a serious interest for japanese lately and decided to take it up in parallel as well. I know that I slow myself down, but for me that is just another option to do when I don't feel like doing spanish or french. It's better than doing nothing or wasting my time online with other stuff
I am still learning Hiragana and since it's rather dabbling in the language that will take some more time anyway. I now know the vowels a, i, u , e, o. And can write them and recognise them (mostly... when I'm too fast with deciding I probably switch the vowels around since they are in another order than those vowels in my native language and for now I only learned them in the order they appear in the tables)
My writing is far from perfect and I mostly just do that in order to recognize them easier instead of just looking at them and partly because I like to write new characters. It's fun (and also part of why I like Japanese or similar language. Though not the only reason)
I found some nice writing practice sheet designed for kids (here, here or here. It reminds me of my own first grade. Following the lines with all the colored pencils I got

[Komma]

I finally actually believe all of those who only learn one language at a time and have just a few active goals. I have been tempted by many languages and starting new things is always exciting, but it leads to not making much progress. I had less time for my 'old' languages I started to study and other tasks that were more important in combination with multiple languages and goals led to doing nothing language-related at all, because I saw the mountain of work I should have done but did not.

So, I decided to focus on French. And there I will focus on Assimil for the moment. I believe my problem of motivation came from having multiple languages and too many resources that I was just overwhelmed and didn't make progress at all. Often I could not decide where and with which resource I should start and searched for even more. That does not take me to my goal of being able to speak and understand the language.
I like the language and the country and though I only travelled through the country to get somewhere else, I still want to build upon my efforts of studying at school. And since I haven't been to France or another french-speaking country this option is still there and once I do go there I want to communicate at least a little bit

My Plan:
I want to focus on roughly one 'learning resource' at a time. With this I mean some kind of course and I chose Assimil. I already bought it and I am currently at lesson 23 (or rather finished this lesson today).
Until the end of the year I want to finish the passive wave. I still have to think about how I tackle revisions of lessons and once I get there, how I want to tackle the active wave. Probably just like intended by Assimil. I would see this as 3rd exercise.
To finish the passive wave I have to do about 1 new lesson per day with a buffer of 25 days (113 total lessons, 23 already done -> 90 lessons left => 90 lessons in 115 days).

I already posted my routine somewhere, so I just quote it:

My method for new lessons is something like this:
1. Listen to new lesson 3 times and try to understand.
2. Listen a 4th time while reading the text and look at the translation of unknown words (as I am refreshing my french there are only very few words unknown at the moment)
3. Listen and speak along (loud) 3 times. Though at the 3rd time I stop after each sentence and repeat and also read the annotations.
4. Excercises. Understanding: Listen and try to shadow. Repeat on my own and try to understand. (Mostly they are easy to understand)
I don't normally write down the fill in excercises, but I kind of imagine the spelling in my head and compare to the solution.
5. Listen and shadow (or at least what I understand of shadowing: speaking along..)

My routine for older lessons:
1. Listen
2. Listen and shadow.

If I do encounter unknown grammar and Assimil does not explain it well, I do look it up in my grammar book. I probably continue filling my anki deck with new words/phrases or grammar points (in form of example sentences not as rules). When I feel like it I might even watch French TV, listen to a podcast or start reading some easy stuff. So Assimil is not my only resource. But it is the one I am focusing on and what I want to finish in the given time frame (or rather at least the passive wave).

[Komma]

I decided to post 'more updates', with which I mean, I don't do it on a regular schedule and even if I didn't complete a huge bunch of things, but also just small things. I hope that that way I don't forget about it that easily and my posts are not that big and better to read.

And since the last time I already did two new lesson of Assimil (24 & 25). Both today as I wasn't around yesterday. I didn't want to 'fall behind' again so close after I even started and the lessons 22-24 were all about the same topics: games and things french people are said to do in their free time... The lesson about lottery maybe was to learn some numbers, but still it would not be something I would care to talk about.
Lesson 25 was about two jokes of which I only found the second funny. And just after I read the translation
In that lesson there actually were some new words for me (I am relearning/refreshing my french, so the beginning of Assimil isn't quite challenging. Maybe I should change the course, but apart from some content I prefer this over many other courses)

I think as long as my time and energy allows it, I'll do two lessons, otherwise I continue with one per day. For me as a 'false beginner/intermediate' I always had my difficulties in finding a way to get into French again. There is so much that I heard before, but don't know anymore. Most courses are boring, but just reading and watching is not exactly my preferred way.
It just crossed my mind that I could also just start with the active wave alongside doing new lessons. As I already learned French for 3 years (about 6 years ago) I don't need to go through half the book to be able to do the translations. That would also help my active skills more than just the passive wave while still using the portions of the course and don't have to search for everything I have to learn on my own. And actively doing something would probably be very motivating as well

[Komma]

Passive Wave
In the past week I managed to get to lesson 31 which is about 1 lesson per day (although it was rather 3 days nothing, 3 days 2 lessons per day )

And I have to say that the quality of the lessons vary hugely. Sometimes it's just a bunch of themed vocabulary in sentences without much interesting context (like in fance we have many little shops and then they are listed with what you can buy there. Bakery, butcher...) and then there is this little Monsieur Duclos story. Which basically is the same but since there are a few lessons around Monsieur Duclos it is more interesting to follow.
And then there are such lessons as 'ridicoulous questions' (what is heavier 1kg feathers or 1kg iron.. hahaha..) It's just too strange. Maybe strange things stick to the brain better, but sometimes i just think 'what the..' and am demotivated to even learn the new vocabulary I haven't already learned in school.
Maybe it really isn't a good course for someone who already learned the language to some extent, but I guess even as a beginner I'd think why they make such silly lessons?

Also the annotations barely answer my questions. Though that is probably true for many other courses (which are boring as well) and even more so for just reading or watching stuff.

Active Wave
I've also started the active wave and did 3 lessons so far. Mostly I remember the sound of the lesson. Like how it was said on CD. I listened to the first lessons very often. Sometimes I have a different solution, but I often don't know whether this is correct as well or not. I have written down all my questions and want to ask here or elsewhere for the correct version.
I know it's a bit early for me to start the active wave but I doubt that I assimilate more in the next 20 lessons that the translation part gets easier.

Conclusion
I'll stick to the course until the end of the month and decide whether I want to keep going or not. At the moment and in the past there were often these lessons which were just so silly that it hurt. But it's also easy to fit a lesson into my schedule. Though I maybe should just drop it and either find another good course or just drop courses altogether and 'make my own' (which does not mean I create a full course I then go through, but rather just take a grammar book and go through it. Take the concepts in form of example sentences and make flashcards of them. And also read books etc. Like Wyner in his fluent forever book describes. I liked the concept, but I couldn't get away from courses. Also I bought this assimil book, maybe that is why I stick to it, so my money wasn't thrown away. And it's still useful for listening to French )

[jennybenny25]

Hello

Love the Japanese worksheet link you put up........... must step away from another language i too feel overwhelmed! Im drifting between spanish and french but will use one resource each (good idea thanks)

x

[Komma]

Hello to those reading my log

After another language learning break, I decided to take it up again. However, I am going to start with a new language: Japanese.

A short note on French:
I have been studying French on and off for too long now. And I came to the conclusion that I'm just not motivated for learning all that grammar again. Some things I still remembered, others not. But learning grammar for the sake of it isn't for me.
Assimil also got strange that I hadn't the motivation to continue that. I'm probably not dropping french completely. But rather than learning all that grammar and vocab I forgot since I learned it at school, I just start reading and watching stuff. I always wanted to read the Asterix comics and I could do that in French as well. And look up all that I don't know. Maybe read a passage about specific grammar topics. But not memorizing anything specifically.
This is what somehow worked in English for me as well. I learned all the grammar stuff at school and had good grades, but what improved my skills more than anything was watching TV shows and reading Harry Potter (as my first real book in English) and other books, articles etc.

Now, on to Japanese
I've started dabbling in Japanese before but with other language projects on my schedule, I didn't put much effort into it. The reason I now start with it may again not be some really strong motivation to put really really much effort into it, but my aim isn't to speak to people quickly. Actually I am more interested in the culture and writing system. I also considered Mandarin. However, a friend of mine is into Japanese and so I have a 'learning buddy' I also know some Japanese people from my sports club (though that also is true for Chinese). I could also just read about culture without learning the language, but I do like languages...
I don't have much of a plan though. I just start learning Hiragana and look through those web resources I collected in my dabbling phase.

[AndyMeg]

For learning kanji (and even the kanas) I would suggest this awesome android app: Japanese Kanji Study. It is the best resource for learning kanji that I've ever found.

[Komma]

Thank you very much, AndyMeg
This app happened to be on my wishlist However, i always forget about wishlist stuff So, thank you for recommending that app. It looks very nice.

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As I am already doing a post, I thought I could write a tiny update on my Japanese schedule for the next few days/weeks.
Yesterday, I refreshed the vowel hiraganas. I still remembered them, but writing them out again can only help for future hiraganas. I want to do 5 new ones each day and revise those I already did. So, I plan with about 2 weeks. That way I have also some time for the modifications and more revision. Maybe I have to slow down, when I notice that I confuse all those characters

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Also a short extra note on French: I borrowed the first Asterix from the library and I plan to actually start reading some native material. Maybe that will be more motivating and also push my understanding further than doing Assimil lessons...

[Komma]

Currently I am on track with my Hiragana study. However, the fact that I already did those Hiraganas with an anki deck before helps a lot. Up to now, I did the vowel sounds as well as the k-, s-, t- and n-sounds. There are still some characters that I tend to confuse or just don't remember (depending on the testing method).

My routine is to combine different learning apps. Mostly because I also like to test out different resources I quite like Jalup next, an SRS based learning website. Hiragana is one of the free packs. For learning Hiragana, you have the character plus stroke order, the sound and a sentence without translation (just for the sound and further practice of previously learned characters..). So, I listen to the sound, write the Kana a few times on paper and listen to the sentence (or try to first read it myself, because all the hiragana used are those one already discovered). After 5 new characters, I go to the revision page. There you get the sentence and have to know what the Kanas are plus writing and can either rate yourself correct or wrong.
Actually it is not very special. You could do it with Anki, paper flashcards or just write kanas on a sheet of paper or use a different app. But I like that you get the kanas in order like in those tables. And that there is a sentence, where you can always test previous kanas as well. And all is premade, so I don't have to put too much effort into cards.

However, I also like to use other apps. This Japanese Kanji study mentioned by AndyMeg is great. Though only on my smartphone, and that is too small for my taste. Good for a commute or so, but at the moment I am mostly at home. I now use a windows 10 app on my surface, with handwriting recognition, which is great for prompting to know the kana with the info of the pronunctiation. (I could do this on paper, but as we just moved to a new flat, everything is still everywhere, and my tablet is just more convenient at the moment.)

I am actually looking forward to the Kanji study. And learning actual words and stuff. But I don't want to start with too much and then do nothing after a few days, because I am demotivated or bored. So I keep the work low and have always something to look forward to, instead of doing all at once.

[Komma]

Current goals:
☐ Katakana
☐ learning how to introduce myself
☐ Genki I book read and understand dialogues only: Conversation and Grammar: 1 / 12 - Reading and Writing: 0 / 12
☐ Tae Kims Complete guide to Japanese: 1 / 88
☐ Tae Kim's Grammar Guide

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Previous Goals:
☑ Studying reading and writing Hiragana.
☒ learn my first 80 Kanji in 42 days - I changed my approach and try to learn words with Kanji instead of just Kanji.

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Resources:

• Kakitai (Windows 10 app) - I currently use it for learning to recall the Hiragana from the pronunciation. I just discovered that it also offers learning games and lessons. I don't know how useful these are. I like the app for the handwriting recognition as I use it on a tablet with a stylus.
• Japanese Kanji study (Android app) - not much used yet, but will check out for the Kanji and when I am on the bus or train.
• Genki
• Tae Kim's complete guide to Japanese