What next? (learning Spanish, maintaining German, random dabbling...)

[gsbod]

French
Not a great start to the week, thanks to work and some minor health annoyances, however I have managed to get going again with some French study. One month after new year, I've already gone back on two ideas I had about how I should be studying French, namely I have spent money on additional course materials, and I have just gone back to using Anki. In my defence:

1. Grammaire progressive niveau intermédiaire wasn't working for me, both in terms of fit to my current level and the fact it was lacking audio. Le nouvel édito is a perfect fit to my level, and it's great that it comes with audio extracts from real French sources, there are just not enough of them. Communication progressive niveau intermédiaire would have been amazing had it come with the promised MP3 CD, but that wasn't to be (and the publisher's website is still down). So now I've got Grammaire essentielle du français B1 and Vocabulaire essentiel du français B1, both published by Didier and both with MP3 CDs actually attached (phew!). So now I am trying to interleave studying from Les 500 exercices de phonétique and the Vocabulaire essentiel and Grammaire essentielle books with Le nouvel édito, without getting into too much of a mess. Totally doable as long as I encourage my brain to focus on what I am studying, rather than what order I am studying things in.

2. When used appropriately, Anki works. It helped me break into intermediate Japanese, and break through intermediate German and right out the other side. So why would I deny myself such a useful tool for French? I just need to make sure I use it effectively, i.e. stick to shorter words and phrases and don't try to make cards for everything at once.

German
I am making good progress through Ungeliebte Königin. It is much easier to read than I expected. It's the first time I've read a non-fiction book with no dialogue in German, so it's nice to see that I can do it with relative ease.

My reading is still lagging behind my listening - in that my listening in German is pretty much as good as my listening in English (which, when I think about it, is in itself pretty amazing). I can read comfortably enough in German, but do still need to refer to a dictionary from time to time and sometimes stumble over passages in a way that I don't when reading in English. I think I just need to get a few more books under my belt.

Speaking of listening, the other day I tried watching Witcher on Netflix in the German dub, but really struggled to understand a few bits and started to feel a bit down about my German listening skills. So I switched back to the English audio, only to discover that I was struggling to understand the same bits in English - because of mumbling, made up words, weird things to say in the context etc. So yes, my German listening is still pretty much as good as my listening in English

[gsbod]

German
I've finished reading Ungeliebte königin and found it quite an enjoyable read. Although the focus was on the unfortunate brides of 7 European kings, from Henry VIII and his six wives through to Alfons XII of Spain and his two marriages, the effect was to give quite a neat overview of Western European history from the 16th to the 19th century - although by the end it was quite hard to keep track of who's who, since people kept naming their children after other relatives, and a lot of them ended up marrying cousins of one sort or another. There wasn't much critical analysis in the text (not that I expected it) and a little too much emphasis on how people looked, especially the women. Apparently not being pale and slim is a bad thing.

In other news, just for fun (I have a strange idea of fun) I decided to test myself with the example paper for reading and listening for Goethe Zertifikat C2. I scored 85/100 on the reading paper and 91/100 on the listening paper, which suggests some levelling up has occured - and my comprehension has almost reached the limits of what is testable. I wouldn't be confident to sit the writing and speaking parts of the test without some hardcore exam training, however. Watching the example video for C2 posted by Goethe Institut on Youtube, I really don't speak that well (apart from sometimes in my head after I've listened to lots of good content), although the candidate was graded as "sehr gut", so it would be interesting to see what kind of performance would be graded "ausreichend" (which is still good enough to pass!)

French
French is still going, but going slowly. Since my German has had a nice little boost from all the reading and good podcast content I've been listening to, I'm finding it hard to motivate myself to hit the French textbooks. I've paused working with Le nouvel édito, because four books on the go at once is too much. What I'm left with is actually perfect for where I am and what I need, but I do need to put the time in to get the results. And I do fear, likely irrationally, that if I put too much time into French it may come at the expense of German.

I've also realised that I have completely different expectations and ambitions between the two languages. I want my German to be as good as possible, and I want to do my best to keep it at a high level. I simply can't imagine getting French to the same level as German. For French, I really think B2 would be good enough, and I wonder whether I would be motivated to take it even that far.

Well, I'm not giving up until I've finished the course I'm enrolled on. Hopefully by then I'll be feeling more positive about it again.

[gsbod]

German
This week I've read a graphic novel called Jein by Büke Schwarz. It's about a young artist in Berlin who has Turkish parents and a German stepfather. The story takes place around the time of the Turkish referendum on changes to the constitution in 2017 and deals with questions of politics, identity and art. It's one of those texts where the language is pretty simple, but the ideas are really complex.

I found out about it by listening to the Deutschlandfunk Lesart podcast, which I'm finding really interesting and useful. It's a daily podcast, around half an hour long, and covers a mixture of new books and reviews of older books around different themes, so altogether it covers a wide range of subjects - over the last couple of weeks I've heard pieces about changing attitudes to social class in Germany, the plague in literature, female sexuality and the cultural history of sleep, to name a few.

Now I'm reading Die Hauptstadt by Robert Menasse, which won the Deutscher Buchpreis a couple of years ago. Being a prize winner, it's a bit more "literary" than the books I usually read in German, but it's probably time I extended my range a bit. It's supposed to be a satire about the EU. I wasn't sure if it would feel a bit too soon, given the political situation here in the UK, however so far so good, the book's not depressed me yet.

French
I'm embarassed to admit, there is not much going on here...

Other
Currently hooked on the latest album by Mongolian rock band The HU. Should this be my next language??

[gsbod]

It's been a month since my last update, basically because I've been reluctant to admit, in writing, that I'm struggling with French.

In practical terms, I know exactly what I need to do to improve my French and I have access to all the tools, resources, and people I need. The problem is with my attitude and motivation, and this falls broadly into two areas.

Firstly, I am concerned that working on French is somehow diminishing my German. One of the issues I have is with pronunciation - if I've been trying to speak French, my German suffers. I'm not one of those lucky people with a talent for mimicry, so any pronunciation gains I make are hard won (and I'm therefore desperate not to lose them again). The other issue I have is that there is only so much time in the day to indulge in books, TV and podcasts (and to be honest, I don't have much patience with TV...) - I resent the idea of spending time struggling to read a French book, when I have a shelf full of German books just begging for my attention.

Secondly, and far more difficult for me to try and put into writing, is my attitude towards the language in general. I hate that this is a problem. I don't like anybody making value judgements about any language - it usually comes from a place of ignorance, and doesn't make sense from a rational point of view. Even at a personal level, I've had the pleasure of meeting some great people who happen to speak French, I appreciate the culture and music of the French speaking world, and the fact that the history of France is so closely intertwined with the history of my own country makes it worth paying attention to regardless of anything else. And yet I just don't feel excited about French in the way that I do about German, or Japanese even - and this causes a genuine block when it comes to memorising things. And I really hate that this is a problem for me.

I'm still commited to completing this French course (assuming it's not cancelled by a global pandemic first), but after that maybe I should just move on. After all, with thousands of languages out there in the world, it's not worth getting hung up about these things, is it?

[gsbod]

And almost overnight, everything changes...

Just a couple of weeks ago I was feeling bad for not being able to be more ruthless in clearing out some books and DVDs. I was even wondering whether it might be time to let somebody else have a go with some of my Japanese books, just to make a bit more space on my shelves. NOT ANY MORE!!!

My French classes have been cancelled although I still have an assignment I need to submit if I want to claim the credits for the year. I'm not exactly enthusiastic about it, but since I have an unexpected amount of free time at home now, I can honestly say I probably don't have anything better to do. And once it's done, I've got some thoughts about German and, yes, maybe even Japanese.

I'm now working from home, which I have mixed feelings about but on the whole I'm grateful that I don't have to mix with too many people now given the circumstances. I am a bit concerned since a large part of managing my mental health involves getting out, being active, and having enough social contact with others. For the time being we can at least still leave the house so I'll be walking my imaginary dog every day until instructed otherwise.

I do still feel pretty grateful for what I've got, but it's crazy how quickly things have changed. I guess most other people reading this are probably in a similar situation?

[gsbod]

Pubs, bars and restaurants are now closed and we're supposed to stay away from each other as much as possible. Given how many people I saw out and about today, and given how things have developed elsewhere in Europe, I expect further restrictions to follow over the next week or so.

Anyway, given the circumstances, I'm thinking it might be time to get reacquainted with these guys. The question is, where to start...

20200321_175109.jpg

[dampingwire]

The question is, where to start...

Well as I think you passed N2, perhaps みんなの日本語中級 or 新完全マスター N2読経 to get back into the swing of things and then move on to 新完全マスター N1読経? I would suggest NHK News and maybe Asahi Shinbun, but I suspect that right now you may get bored after the third article about 新型コロナウイルス. (To think only a month ago I was half complaining to my tutor that all of the main articles on NHK News were about that topic and I had to hunt for anything that covered any different vocabulary ...).

[DaveAgain]

Given how many people I saw out and about today, and given how things have developed elsewhere in Europe, I expect further restrictions to follow over the next week or so.

I've been watching a french current affairs programme for news recently, I'm not convinced that their don't leave the house decree is respected by the french population to a greater extent than the UK's don't leave the house request.

I think Mr Johnson said 75% compliance was required for the beneficial effect.

[dampingwire]

I think Mr Johnson said 75% compliance was required for the beneficial effect.

This will undoubtedly be taken as "well, as long as the other 3 out of 4 people comply, I can do what I want and we'll all still be fine"!

Although this morning it does look like fewer people are about, and the ones that are are mostly alone rather than in a group.

[Iversen]

I've been watching a french current affairs programme for news recently, I'm not convinced that their don't leave the house decree is respected by the French population to a greater extent than the UK's don't leave the house request.

I have watched live TV from a number of countries showing reporters standing live in a central street somewhere, and the reports with most people on the streets and least distance between them definitely came from England (read: central parts of London) - but maybe that has changed within the last couple of days where mr. Johnson and his government have been somewhat more strict in their messages. As for the 75% he speaks about it may just be a pessimistic estimate - with the silent second afterthought 'if that's what we can get then it may be enough'. But if one out of four ignores the warnings then it isn't enough.

PS: excuse me for writing about corona in Gsbod's log, but this subject tends to creep in everywhere...