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

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gsbod
Blue Belt
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=1152
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby gsbod » Wed Apr 20, 2022 5:36 pm

Although my Japanese project has stalled somewhat this week, I think I still deserve a Wednesday post as I have at least done something since my post last week. Which is basically one reading exercise from the N3 Kanzen Master Reading book, but one exercise is still better than no exercises.

Amid all my worrying about Japanese, I remembered a conversation I had with a fellow student in my first year as an undergraduate. She played the flute, like me, and had decided that she wanted to pass her Grade 8 flute exam, and then stop playing. At the time, that struck me as odd. It still does, to be honest. I wonder if I worry my aims for Japanese are going to go the same way. I'll study until I reach a certain level, and then never use it?

My word/phrase of the week is: フリーマーケット (this one really confused me until I realised it could mean "flea market" as well as "free market")
I am still reading: よつばと!2
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golyplot
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby golyplot » Sat Apr 23, 2022 12:49 am

Are you interested in visiting Japan? That might be a good way to get the motivation to study Japanese, and it provides a natural stopping point to your studies as well.
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gsbod
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby gsbod » Sat Apr 23, 2022 3:06 pm

I think I will leave a link to this thread here as it is worth thinking about each time I decide to have another go with Japanese and then lose steam a couple of weeks later :)

golyplot wrote:Are you interested in visiting Japan? That might be a good way to get the motivation to study Japanese, and it provides a natural stopping point to your studies as well.


This would certainly make sense if I was interested...it's not that I'm not interested. But my mental list of places I want to visit now it is possible again is already full of places in Europe which I would like to visit more (and also don't involve flying long haul...or flying at all...)

If I allowed my holiday aims to dictate my language learning, at the moment I would mostly be struggling to decide whether to focus on Spanish or Italian...
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golyplot
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby golyplot » Sat Apr 23, 2022 3:40 pm

gsbod wrote:If I allowed my holiday aims to dictate my language learning, at the moment I would mostly be struggling to decide whether to focus on Spanish or Italian...


On the bright side, they're basically the same thing anyway :P
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gsbod
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby gsbod » Wed Apr 27, 2022 9:48 pm

Thinking about the Super Challenge. Just thinking. I still love the idea of being part of something like this (although not on social media, ugh). If I sign up I will probably fail (and that's ok). There wouldn't be much point signing up for German, since it wouldn't really be a challenge, which leaves Japanese and French as the only likely candidates (i.e. I'm good enough to make a start on reading and listening without having to do more study first, and I already own some books and have easy access to materials that would fulfill the "film" criteria).

As my recent posts have made clear, I'm struggling somewhat with the idea of maintaining motivation for Japanese over an extended period of time.

Which leaves French. The pluses are: plenty of stuff to watch and read, options to attend face to face classes in the autumn, a meet up group has started up locally again (which is more than can be said for German, sadly), and France is about the easiest option there is for a trip abroad. So why don't I feel more enthusiastic about it?

Edit: I'm really struggling with the correct spelling for the plural of plus?
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golyplot
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby golyplot » Thu Apr 28, 2022 4:46 am

gsbod wrote:I'm really struggling with the correct spelling for the plural of plus?


I think it's "plusses". Though you can always dodge the question with "advantages" or "upsides" or the like if you need to.
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gsbod
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby gsbod » Thu Apr 28, 2022 7:37 pm

golyplot wrote:I think it's "plusses". Though you can always dodge the question with "advantages" or "upsides" or the like if you need to.


I checked a few dictionaries because I had to know. Most of them didn't give the plural form (dictionary shorthand for "duh, it's obvious") but thankfully Collins have come up with the goods, sort of. Apparently both pluses and plusses are acceptable!
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Caromarlyse
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby Caromarlyse » Fri Apr 29, 2022 3:28 pm

I also can't decide about the super challenge, and am experiencing the same kind of confusion about direction to take more generally!
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gsbod
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Re: Und was jetzt? (DE|JP|KO|_?)

Postby gsbod » Fri Apr 29, 2022 10:56 pm

I've registered for a half challenge with French. I'm expecting the next few weeks to be pretty awful at work so it will be a slow start, but on a half challenge it should be less off-putting to catch up. And the thing with the Super Challenge is it's all about the long game.

On a rational level, French does make sense as the language I ought to focus on if I do indeed want to spend time on language learning. (I made a spreadsheet to compare options...Welsh and Spanish came next on the list, but French was ahead by some way).

Still, it's now a Bank Holiday weekend and I need to spend a few days relaxing and getting out of the house, definitely not studying!
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gsbod
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Re: Alors, ab jetzt Französisch? (German, French, SC, other things...)

Postby gsbod » Sun May 01, 2022 11:59 am

Happy Super Challenge Day everybody!

I've set myself up a spreadsheet in Google sheets to record my reading and watching in French. I don't want to focus too much on the counting side of things so I've got the totals nicely hidden in a separate worksheet which I can just use to report on progress every month or so. I haven't used Google sheets for a while so I was amused to see a file there for a German to B2 plan I'd put together for myself back in May 2017. I didn't stick to the plan (obviously) but also, I now know that by May 2017 I'd already met the requirements for B2, and was actually well on my way to C1, I just hadn't realised yet.

I've been limbering up for French with RFI's Journal en français facile. It's definitely facile compared to regular news broadcasts, but that doesn't mean it's not challenging! To add to the challenge, after listening to the Journal I've been queuing up a German podcast to play immediately afterwords, to help improve my switching abilities. After a few days my listening is getting better attuned to French again, or at least, I am getting back to my previous best level. It has been a useful warm up activity. But the news is so depressing, I'll be glad now just to start on some mindless TV shows instead.

I thought about maybe doing a DELF practice paper or similar as a kind of level check before starting the challenge to see if I can measure some improvement throughout. But actually, since I don't have any exam-related goals, I'm not sure this is even relevant. Even CEFR levels, whilst being a useful gauge particularly for European languages, don't really align with my own personal desires. I suppose what I want is to be able to watch French TV shows and read French books with the same facility I could in German back in 2017, and also ideally to be able to hold my own in a conversation, but only if I can find a regular group of people to talk to. Couldn't give two hoots about reading press articles and answering hair splitting questions about them or being able to write a letter to make a case for something within the constraints of B2 level grammar and vocabulary :lol:
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