Li's 2019 Log (English, Japanese, French, German)

[Ren_Lei123]

Hello, I'm Li from China. I'm really excited to find this forum and start my own language log! To start with, I have to admit that writing a log in English is not so easy for me. Although I've learnt English for years, I only practice my writing for exams...[To be honest, for all the languages I'm learning, speaking and writing is always a huge problem. But since reading classics is my primary motivation, I will put more effort into inputting this year] So, please feel free to correct me, merci d'avance .

Japanese
I started learning Japanese around five years ago and passed the JLPT N1 with ease. At first, I was quite proud of the result. However, I soon realized that passing JLPT doesn't mean anything because it is usually easy for a Chinese person to guess the prononciation and the significance of a kanji! Now, I could understand NHK news, documentaires and some バラエティー, yet I have barely finished a few novels in Japanese.

English
English is my second language, however, I have little passion for it as a result of the torture of exams. This year, I will try to USE English! (Thanks to English, I could enjoy this forum!) And I believe writing this log frequently will be a good practice for my writing.

French
I've been studying French for one year and now I'm with an Online Chinese tutor to study Le Nouveau Taxi!3. There are 135 lessons and I'm on no. 14. French is my main focus this year. Thanks to this forum again, I have found some good listening materials: "Intermediate French Podcast" and "L'avis de Marie". I listened to the latest episode of IFP yesterday and despaired at understanding almost nothing . This morning I read the transcript. Well, I could understand the transcript without a dictionary. It is said that the first episode will be easier. So I tried the oldest episode and was surprised to find that I could understanding around 80%!

German
I know I should not rush to a new foreign language . I just could not control myself at the thought of reading in German. So I registered in the Goethe-Institue and am taking a course every week. This year, I don't want to put much effort in German: I will just follow the course and learn some vocabulary.

Aim
One of my big problems is that I'm overwhelmed by Anki reviews (I will search later to find how others deal with Anki wisely.) Though it's useful to me, I still feel exhausted adding new cards and reviewing them every single day! I prefer to read more and listen more! So I'm starting a half super challenge for English, Japanese and French(It seems that I'm the only one starting a super challenge for English ).

[Ren_Lei123]

Here is my plan for the week. Hope I can finish them in time!
11/52 11.03-17.03

French
+Le Nouveau Taxi!3 1~2 lessons per day [M.T.-.T.F.-.S]
+L'avis de Marie/Intermediate French Podcast x 1 per day [M.T.-.T.-.-.S]
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.S.S]
+Drops 15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.F.S.S]

Japanese
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.S.S]
+時をかける少女[Without a dictionary!!!] 30~60mins per day[M.T.W.T.] finished!


German
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.-.S]
+Drops 15mins per day [M.T.-.T.-.-.S]

English
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.S.S]

[Ren_Lei123]

One of my big problems is that I'm overwhelmed by Anki reviews (I will search later to find how others deal with Anki wisely.) Though it's useful to me, I still feel exhausted to add new cards and review them every single day! I prefer to read more and listen more! So I am starting a half super challenge for English, Japanese and French(It seems that I'm the only one starting a super challenge for English ).

Welcome to the forum! Some people just ditch Anki altogether when it becomes too much for them, sometimes to return to it again later or sometimes they find they're ok without Anki as long as they consume enough content otherwise (reading, watching tv, listening to podcasts, etc.). Some people also recommend using new vocabulary while speaking or writing as a way to get it to stick in one's memory. I'm only learning a language to be able to read books and watch tv, so I am currently relying on those things as my "method" for remembering vocabulary.

I made just a few corrections to the quoted text above. Your English is great. Keep writing!

Many thanks for your help and your suggestions. Anki helps me a lot in my pervious learning, so I might not give it up. But I will try to balance my extensive reading/listening and anki cards(I used to review 500+cards/day, now around 100 cards )

[Inst]

Congrats. As you well know, 考试是考试，实践是实践. Learning for the test is good when you're trying to bootstrap, but ultimately proficiency is a matter of practice in the specific skill.

[Ren_Lei123]

Congrats. As you well know, 考试时考试，实践是实践. Learning for the test is good when you're trying to bootstrap, but ultimately proficiency is a matter of practice in the specific skill.

That's true. Thanks.

[Ren_Lei123]

12/52 18.03-24.03

French
+Le Nouveau Taxi!3 1~2 lessons per day [-.-.-.-.-.]
+L'avis de Marie/Intermediate French Podcast x1 per day [M.T.-.-.F.S.]
+Vocabulaire Progressif du Français(Niveau intermédiaire) x1 per day [-.T.-.-.F.S.S.]
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.-.S.S.]
+Drops 15mins per day [-.T.-.-.F.S.S.]

Japanese
+Anki <15mins per day[M.T.W.T.F.S.S.]
+コンビニ人間 30~60 mins per day[M.T.W.] finished! I really love this book!

German
+Drops 15mins per day [-.T.-.-.F.S.S.]
+Memrise 15mins per day [M.T.W.-.-.-.S.]
+Shadowing 15mins per day [] ->I forgot it _(:3 」∠)_

English
+Anki <15mins per day [M.T.W.T.F.S.S.]
+Convenience Store Woman[]

I went to the Institute français this weekend and borrowed a lot of books:

Vocabulaire Progressif du Français (Niveau intermédiaire)
Grammaire Progressif du Français (Niveau Avancé)
Littérature en dialogues (Niveau intermédiaire)
Assimil Using French
Les Chroniques de Narnia (I. Le Neveu du Magicien) by C.S. Lewis

This week I will try to work on Vocabulaire Progressif du Français(Niveau intermédiaire). I leafed through the book before, but my perfectionism made it a huge burden to finish the whole book. This time I will just read texts in the book and control my impulse to check the dictionary. And I will not do the exercises since I didn't borrow the answer book. By far it works quite well. I borrowed the book last afternoon and now I've already finished the first two chapters.

I read Iversen's Guide and really inspired by the LR method! So I tried to apply the method to read Harry Poter in Japanese and French. Although I'm not a fan of the series, I read the whole series in Chinese when I was a teenager-- I suppose I could figure out what's going on. Thanks to kindle, I bought the first volume in both two languages easily. Without surprise, the Japanese rendering is not so difficult for me and it's really a fun to pick out words like クラクラ、コチコチ. As for the French one... All I want to say is that it was a pain to finish the first chapter and my reading speed lagged behind the audiobook... Maybe it's better to finish Vocabulaire Progressif du Français first and restart reading HP in French. As I said before I'm not a fan of HP, so I will read another book in Japanese this week. コンビニ人間 might be a good choice. It is an award-winning book which I bought around one year ago (couldn't stop myself buying new books ) and I also find the English translation. So I will practice the LR method by reading/hearing コンビニ人間 this week!

My German teacher reminded us yesterday that the first exam was in two weeks! So I have to spare more time to memorise German vocabulaires this week. Also I will repeat after my text book to enhance my listening and pronunciation.

[Ren_Lei123]

13/52 01.04-07.04

French
+Le Nouveau Taxi!3 1~2 lessons per day [◉--]
+L'avis de Marie/Intermediate French Podcast x1 per day [◉◉◉◉]
+LingQ 15mins per day [◉◉◉◉]
+Vocabulaire Progressif du Français(Niveau intermédiaire) x1 per day [◉-◉◉] finished!
+Anki <15mins per day [◉◉◉]
-Drops 15mins [-◉◉]

Japanese
+Anki <15mins per day[◉◉◉]
+「青の炎」30~60mins per day []
-Writing > 100 words []

German
+Anki <15mins per day []
+Shadowing 15mins per day []
-Drops 15mins []

English
+Anki <15mins per day [◉◉◉]
+30~60mins Convenience Store Woman per day []

The last two weeks were really terrible. I couldn’t finish my daily routine since I became so lazy. Anyway, I hope this week will be better. As for L-R method, maybe I will give it up…Reading a book more than twice in different languages is totally not a fun at least for me.