Weeks 19-25We're almost halfway through 2015, so it's time to assess what progress I've made so far, and realign my goals with a view to making the second half more productive.
Major language: Hawaiian (358 hours in total this year)
I've been working very hard on Hawaiian this year and have made some good progress since my last update. This includes producing a short Hawaiian video with a couple of classmates that was chosen to represent the department, and taking on a further 6 week intensive summer course, which really helped push me to study each day to complete the main textbook we use for Hawaiian ("Ka Lei Haʻaheo").
I've also helped teach Hawaiian at an elementary school, and will be giving a short talk on pōhaku kuʻi ʻai (poi pounding) to the same children again next Thursday, who in return will treat us all to a hula presentation.
My most surprising triumph however was in the
6 Week Challenge, where I invested approximately 190 hours into Hawaiian, ultimately leading to me winning the challenge in both "target score" and "total score" categories! Taking part in this challenge helped me keep motivated, and my proficiency rose from A2 level on the CEFR scale at the beginning of the challenge to B1 level by the end.
Altogether in the first half of this year, I've spent almost 360 hours on Hawaiian both inside and outside the classroom, and my proficiency level has risen from A1 to B1, furnishing me with a solid foundation in grammar and vocabulary to go and enjoy native resources at the intermediate level.
My goal in Hawaiian for the second half of the year remains much the same as the beginning of the year, which will be to reach a mid-intermediate level of fluency and proficiency (approximately B1+), to which end I will be studying Hawaiian 202 at university in the Fall.
Minor languages (88 hours in total this year)
I think I've long lost my way with the other minor languages I had on my list, which calls for some major rethinking and pruning in the second half of the year. However it's not as though I did nothing at all to keep them warm and fuzzy, still managing to invest the following total hours across various sideline activities:
Russian: 44 hours
French: 20 hours
Irish: 11 hours
German: 7 hours
Toki Pona: 5 hours
Ancient Egyptian: 1 hour (Arghh...ye mummyglot's curse be upon me!)So for the second half of 2015, I've decided to focus on Russian, French, and German as my minor languages, with a goal of reviewing the Assimil foundation level course book by the end of the year for each one of these languages. If there is any additional time left over, I will move on to the advanced Assimil course book for each language (yes, I have all 6 books waiting in the wings for the brave at heart).
Although I can speak German quite comfortably, and my Russian is just about conversational on a good day, I've never actually completed a course book in any of these languages before. This means I still have gaps in my grammatical knowledge which seriously hold me back in terms of accuracy and overall proficiency (especially when using Russian).
It's also been over quarter of a century since I studied French in high school (and that was for just 1 year anyway), so I'm curious how much will come back to me when I start studying for real again. It's hard to assess my overall level in French right now, as my reading proficiency far surpasses my listening and speaking ability (largely due its similarity to English), but perhaps in its long state of dilapidation, it currently falls around the A2+/B1 mark right now.
Sadly I'll need to shelve Irish and Ancient Egyptian for the time being (hence "five birds +1" shrinks to "four" from here on out), but it will be worth it if I can bring my other straggling languages to the next plateau by the end of the year (let's say at least a more confident B2 or even C1 level, depending on the language and how much time I'm afforded after work and PhD).
(Total time spent on learning languages during the first half of 2015: 448 hours)