How happy are you with your progress?

[smallwhite]

I wish there was an option between neutral and quite happy

Next time I'll put "Upper neutral" and "Lower neutral"
or "Very neutral" and "Quite neutral"...

[qeadz]

Not really happy with it. But it is what it is.

I think with changes to my approach, I've fared better this year compared to last. So at least theres that.

I dont know how most of you do it - I've barely the stomach for learning one language. I can't imagine learning multiple.

[Spoonary]

I went for 'quite unhappy' because I don't think I am even making progress. Of course, in order to make progress I would actually have to be doing something active with my languages (which I'm not). I think what's going on with me is that I'm looking back fondly at my uni days when all I had to worry about was improving my Spanish. Now, however, I'm out in the world of work and I'm frustrated at my lack of spare time/energy to dedicate to puzzling through languages as I once did. I keep telling myself I will find a balance one day, but that day seems a long way off...

[Cavesa]

I think we should make a new thread just like this in half a year (or three months, or another similar amount of time). And it would be a nice goal for all of us, especially all those with the negative answers, to improve this. It might be the most universal and most important criteria for judging our progress ever.

I'd like to move from very unhappy to at least neutral, preferably quite happy, till the next poll

[coldrainwater]

I like the idea of taking snapshots in time and will echo that modest expectations a [quite] happy language learner make. I love reading and initially wanted and L2 that I could use to pursue up to and including professional studies (albethey autodidactic). The answer is more nuanced than black and white, but when I ask myself if there is anything right this minute that I can't do that I originally set out to do a year and a half ago, the honest answer is a nuanced no. As you discover more about your languages and about language learning in general, there can be a tendency toward scope creep and also a tendency to compare yourself against standards that may not always be helpful or applicable to your situation. I am not sure quite where I would be without using mindfulness consciously to look at this question, but I don't see concluding anything worse than neutral with a mindful outlook that lets me enjoy the journey (for the record I voted with a clear head for 'quite happy').

[Neysh]

There is no limit to perfection

[tomgosse]

I am quite unhappy with my progress. I've been studying French for almost three years now, and I can read, with the aid of a dictionary, a website, a newspaper, or a magazine. My writing and listening are poor, and my speaking is atrocious. I'm from Boston, Massachusetts so I can barely pronounce /r/ in English, never mind French.

One of my problems is suffering from chronic pain, I have a lot of "brain fog." When I'm studying I' m lucky to get through one page of text before I blank out. Anyway, that's enough of my pity party. Hoping for a better year in 2018 for all of us.

Joyeux Noël,
Tom

[tarvos]

I'd say I'm doing okay. I could probably have done more, but then I realize days only have 24 hours, my energy levels are down the drain as it is, and I have somewhere between 15 and 25 languages where I could probably string a few words together, so all in all I don't think I should be complaining about my progress.

That said, there are certain languages where I probably could do better if I spent more time doing certain things I'm a bit loathe to do (such as working on my characters and memorizing more vocabulary), but I can counter that with the fact that I have about 13 other languages at my disposal in which I can read novels, sometimes from more than a century ago. So all in all, I don't think I should be complaining, even though I could probably still do better in *all* of my languages (including Russian, Spanish, French etc. Probably even in English and Dutch).

Everyone else would probably be jumping for joy, but I'm never quite satisfied, so there ya go. Someone says "but you can manage in Mandarin" and I am like "but I can't read a newspaper, so..." and there we go again! My psychologists tell me I should be kinder to myself.

[Serpent]

I felt unhappy when I first saw this poll (didn't vote), but now I checked my list of non-language goals and I feel great (I explicitly had "do something that doesn't count" [for challenges etc] as my daily goal )

[Expugnator]

I voted 'quite happy' for the average but since I work on so many languages the answers vary among them. After five-six years of study, I haven't gone farther than B1 for any opaque language I started back then (Mandarin, Russian, Georgian, Norwegian, German). I'm learning the newly added languages more efficiently, or so it seems, so that makes me happier about Estonian, Modern Greek and Indonesian. And I shouldn't forget there is always effort involved even in learning to understand transparent languages such as French, Italian and Papiamento. Comparing what I could understand thanks to Romance cognate discount to what I can understand now shows there were some serious, effective studying and practice involved.