Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

[philomath]

Upcoming Plans

It goes without saying that my goal to finish one unit of Édito per week was way too ambitious. In fact I still haven’t made it past Unit 2. I think the main problem was that I underestimated how much work I would have for my master’s degree this semester. Fortunately my last exam is on June 30, so I'm almost done. However the next month will be pretty packed: first I'm getting my wisdom teeth removed, then I have guests visiting, and finally I'll be moving apartments.

A month ago, I made a plan for balancing my hobbies. That involved taking a break from languages for the first two weeks of July in order to work on my writing projects. Given how busy July will be, however, I've decided to change those two weeks to four. During that time, I plan to maintain Spanish and French by continuing to have iTalki lessons. However, the weekends will be very hectic as well so I'm not sure how many I'll actually manage to have. I also plan to continue reading in French.

Then in August, I want to focus on Spanish in order to prepare for my trip to Spain. After my trip, I'll go back to focusing on French. We'll see whether I stick to this plan.

[philomath]

26Jun22–30Jun22

French
26Jun22: I had a 60-minute lesson with Teacher F. It was a lot of fun. Before the lesson, I was a little nervous about the fact that it would be 60 minutes rather than 45. However in the end it didn't feel too long. We spent the first fifteen minutes discussing the process of finding an apartment and moving. Then we spent the remainder of the lesson discussing the education systems in France and the US. Overall, I felt pretty happy with my speaking skills. However, I definitely made some mistakes with masculine vs. feminine nouns. I also had to think about some of the verb conjugations in the 3rd person plural. I should do some more conjugation drills sometime.

I only read a few pages of Phobos, so I'm a little behind. Now if I want to finish it in June, I need to read 50 pages per day.

27Jun22 and 28Jun22: More Phobos.

29Jun22: I listened to Ça s’explique for 30 minutes and read more of Phobos.

30Jun22: I read more of Phobos and reached page 395, so I didn't quite reach my goal of finishing the book during June.

[philomath]

I'm trying a new format for my monthly results posts, as I really disliked the way I was formatting them before. Hopefully this is more readable!

June Results

Spanish
[X] Have two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Review verb conjugations.

French
[ ] Finish Édito Units 1-4 and half of Unit 5. Not even close! As mentioned in my previous post, this goal was way too ambitious. Also, once I realized I wouldn't complete this goal, I sort of gave up on it entirely.
[ ] Do 450 minutes of listening practice. I should've checked throughout the month to see whether I was on track to complete this goal, but I didn't. I fell just short at 425 minutes. If only I had listened to a podcast episode on June 30!
[X] Have two iTalki lessons. Yes, I had three in fact!
[ ] Finish Kwiziq Level B1. No, and I decided not to use Kwiziq anymore.
[ ] Finish reading Phobos. Almost... I have 100 more pages to read.

My monthly summaries have changed so much since I started keeping a language log on this forum—I never used to complete my speaking-related goals! But in the past few years I've really embraced iTalki. I guess I should be setting higher speaking goals for myself now.

[philomath]

July Goals

As I mentioned before, this month I’m mostly going to maintain Spanish and French so I can focus on my writing projects.

Spanish
[ ] Have two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Spend 1 hour reviewing verb conjugations. (I will adjust this goal if 1 hour is not enough.)
[ ] Keep up with Anki reviews.

French
[ ] Have two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Keep up with Anki reviews.
[ ] Finish reading Phobos.
[ ] Read another 250 pages to stay on track for the Super Challenge.

[philomath]

01Jul22–02Jul22

French
01Jul22: I read 30 pages of Phobos.

02Jul22: I had a three-hour train ride to New York, which was more than enough time to finish reading Phobos. The book ended on a cliffhanger... but I guess I'll never know what happens because I don't think I'll read the rest of the series. The next book I plan to read is Je te plumerai la tête by Claire Mazard.

[philomath]

03Jul22–04Jul22

Spanish
04Jul22: I listened to an episode of Quilo de Ciencia.

French
03Jul22: I had a 45-minute lesson with Teacher G, which we spent discussing current events and politics in the United States. I had a lot to say, so I was speaking more quickly than usual, but I didn't feel very satisfied with my pronunciation. I think I should try shadowing sometime.

04Jul22: I started reading Je te plumerai la tête. I heard about it from the YouTube channel Le Souffle des Mots, which also recommended Phobos. Hopefully this book is better!

Later, I watched another video from Le Souffle des Mots. She has a video series where she walks into different bookstores in France and asks the booksellers to recommend three books. I like hearing their recommendations, and I've been keeping a list of the interesting ones in Goodreads.

[philomath]

05Jul22–11Jul22

French
Not much to report. I had two wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday and spent the rest of the week lying on the couch. I did watch a bit of Dix pour cent though, this time without any subtitles. I also watched a few YouTube videos and continued reading Je te plumerai la tête.

[DaveAgain]

05Jul22–11Jul22

French
Not much to report. I had two wisdom teeth removed on Wednesday and spent the rest of the week lying on the couch. I did watch a bit of Dix pour cent though, this time without any subtitles. I also watched a few YouTube videos and continued reading Je te plumerai la tête.

Yikes! Poor You.

Dents de sagesse/dents du bonheur cropped up in a Vanessa Paradis interview I watched recently, this is clearly a sign for you to convalesce with Vanessa Paradis tunes.

[philomath]

12Jul22

Spanish
12Jul22: I had a 45-minute iTalki lesson. It wasn't great: I forgot a bunch of conjugations and words that I definitely used to know. That isn't surprising, since the only Spanish-related activity I'd done in July was listening to one podcast episode, but I don't want to speak so badly while I'm in Spain!

I think the solution is simple: more output in order to jog my memory. I’ll book some more lessons (I also want to find a new teacher) and spend some time writing as well.

[philomath]

13Jul22

Spanish
13Jul22: I found two more iTalki teachers and booked a lesson with each of them. Then I spent 30 minutes writing in Spanish about my upcoming trip to Spain. I didn't have any difficulties with conjugations, but I struggled with prepositions because I was thinking of French. For example, I kept writing "a Barcelona" when I meant "en Barcelona".

French
13Jul22: During my commute, I continued reading Je te plumerai la tête. So far I'm enjoying it! It's a YA novel, so the narrator's tone is pretty informal, and it has a bit of a psychological thriller element which is intriguing.

By the way, one of the bookstores I visited in Montreal, Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, is having a big sale from July 14–17: 40–60% off all titles! I'm planning to buy some more bandes dessinées because they ship internationally. I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else has been wanting to buy some French books.

Edit: Hmm, actually the bookstore's website is confusing! I'm not sure if I'll be able to buy anything in French.