Time for the end-of-year round-up!
FRENCHTOTAL: 138.27 hours
I spent almost double the amount of time on French this year compared with last. I definitely feel closer to the language now. I still have no desire to get back to “studying” it, but I am very happy to be having regular contact. In particular, I have really enjoyed a lot of the books that I have read in French this year.
I read:
- L’Anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier
- Changer l’eau des fleurs by Valérie Perrin
- La poule et son cumin by Zineb Mekouar
- Les victorieuses by Laetitia Colombani
- Chanson douce by Leïla Slimani
- Les impatientes by Djaïli Amadou Amal
- Tout le bleu du ciel by Mélissa Da Costa
- Les oubliés du dimanche by Valérie Perrin
I’m ahead of target in terms of the reading part of my personal Super Challenge (43.94% when on-target would be 40%). I’m pretty pleased with my achievements here, even though my goal was to read one novel a month. Looking back at my records, I was a diligent reader when I was on holiday during the year, but much less so when I was not…
I also listened to and watched a fair bit over the course of this year, though I’m slightly behind my SC target (36.41%). I have a huge list of what I have listened to/watched, but it would be dull to list out! It was mainly podcasts, some (online) television news, and some Arte programmes and documentaries.
GERMANTOTAL: 192.65 hours
I did significantly less German this year than last, principally because in 2021 I was trying to listen to an hour of German a day - a goal that I dropped for this year. I still think that I did enough to keep my hand in, and of course to get enjoyment from the language. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked, or should have, in the sense that I really like reading in German. When stressed throughout the year I forgot that reading would help, and stopped for huge swathes of time altogether. I need to remember to read next year!
Anyway, I read
Todesmaerchen,
Togesregen,
Todesmal, and
Todesschmerz, all by Andreas Gruber
These were all pretty long books, so I’m not too far behind my SC target (35.04%). It was maybe a bit of a “same-y” diet though…! I have one more to read in this series and I will then move on to something else. I thought this time last year that that point would come sooner, but never mind.
I did a lot of listening/watching (ahead of SC target here: 52.42%). Again, I won’t list everything out. I do seem to be able to find a lot in German to enjoy listening to/watching, though.
As planned, I did no “study” of German
. I’m still happy with that decision, even if given unlimited time and (mental) resources I’d focus on the language more.
PORTUGUESETOTAL: 228.62 hours (including 39.5 hours of classes)
I spent a lot less time on Portuguese this year compared with last. This was mainly because I pretty much dropped the language from May/June until sometime in November. That said, I’ve picked it back up well, and feel happy at the moment with where I am. I have finally got a good routine going, whereby I am working through quite an academic textbook and, in parallel, working with authentic, less formal, texts (oral and written). At the same time, I’m listening to/watching stuff on my own (and in fact am not too far behind target on my SC: 31.59%), as well as trying to read (here it’s still early days… I’m only at 8.12%).
I read:
- Falando com estranhos by Malcolm Gladwell
- A era dos muros by Tim Marshall
- As cinco pessoas que você encontra no céu by Mitch Albom
Plus a couple of false starts that I might try again with in 2023.
Portuguese is the only language in which I’ve consistently watched a lot of serials and films, rather than relying chiefly on podcasts. I watched all of
3%, the first season of
Bom dia, Verônica, and the films
7 Prisioneiros,
M-8, and
Tudo bem no Natal que vem.
RUSSIANTOTAL: 865.80 hours (including 133 hours of classes and another 6.17 hours of speaking in a group)
I did a lot of Russian this year, meeting my aim to make Russian a focus! I also appear to have executed the plan I outlined at the start of the year
. I still feel pretty frustrated a lot of the time with the language, though, because it is so hard and progress is slow.
Anyhow, I did get some reading done, even if it wasn’t as much as I would have liked (and I abandoned some books midway through). I'm only at 10.58% in terms of my personal SC because they were all short graded readers.
I read:
- Преступление и наказание by Dostoevsky
- Анна Каренина by Tolstoy
- Гранатовый браслет by Kuprin
- Дама с собачкой by Chekhov
- Пиковая дама by Pushkin
- Ионыч by Chekhov
- Азазель by Akunin
- Первая любовь by Turgenev
- Белые ночи by Dostoevsky
I also listened to the
Russian with Max podcasts and videos very diligently, and added in some other sources of listening/watching as the year went on. I'm 63.84% of the way through the listening portion of my personal SC.
I kept up with classes, and experimented with a number of different teachers. I definitely find a lot of value now in meeting with a variety of teachers. All of these classes gave me a lot of speaking practice. I *must* have got better, even if I still don’t really feel as though I’m a confident Russian speaker. I have to say that the standard that Russian teachers hold you to is, in my opinion, very high! I've written little essays quite frequently too. I've also done bits of other reading and listening as part of these classes, in addition to my independent work as described above.
I also did quite a lot of study on my own. I’ve reviewed vocabulary and gone over grammar independently. It mainly feels as though it flies out of my head the minute I think I’ve retained it, though… I'm very nearly finished going through volume 1 of
Let's Improve our Russian (about five pages left) and I'm almost halfway through
Russian: From Intermediate to Advanced.
OTHER 2022 GOALSI was pretty successful here! I was generally quite consistent over the course of the year with stretching, I kept up with my workout schedule, and I got an average of 10k steps a day within each month of the year. I've definitely got stronger, because I'm using heavier weights than a year ago.