Amanda's 2020 Log: Spanish, French, and Occasionally Ancient Greek

[philomath]

Tuesday
- Made subs2srs Anki cards for Episode 2 of The Hookup Plan.

Wednesday
- Reviewed 118 Anki flashcards.
- Wrote a short paragraph in French about my sister's birthday and not being able to visit her because of the pandemic.

I definitely need to review more grammar. Specifically, I want to learn more verb forms. I also want to make flashcards for good "connector" phrases in French like "although", "even if", "however", etc.

Tasks for Thursday:
[ ] Do listening practice OR do a Pimsleur French I lesson.
[ ] Review conjugations of the common verbs that I use.
[ ] Write for at least 15 minutes.

[cmia11]

Happy birthday to your sister and I am sorry, I also had to delay my mother's birthday and it's sad even though necessary. I hope you will see each other soon!

[philomath]

Thursday
- Reviewed 85 Anki flashcards.
- Made a list of conjugations for the verbs aller, avoir, être, devoir, faire, pouvoir, sentir, s'inquiéter, and vouloir. I included the conjugation in the present tense, the imparfait, and the past participle. Also, for devoir and pouvoir I included the conjugation of the conditional because I've used it a few times in my writing.
- Reviewed the corrections on my last iTalki entry and wrote down some of the new words I used.
- Wrote 125 words in French about balancing French with other projects.

Lately I've been receiving a lot of messages on iTalki from native speakers of Spanish who are looking for a language exchange. I guess people have a lot more time to study languages now that they're stuck at home! I hadn't been planning to practice speaking Spanish with anyone anytime soon, but a few people seemed nice and genuinely interested in doing a language exchange (unlike those who seem to think iTalki is a dating website...), so I responded to them. Right now we're just exchanging messages on WhatsApp, but maybe we'll talk over Skype... I don't know. I don't mind having Skype calls with language tutors, but with random people it can be super awkward. Maybe if I schedule a Skype call really last-minute, I won't have time to be nervous about it though.

[philomath]

Today I had another French lesson with my iTalki tutor. This one was not my best. We discussed what I've been doing lately, and I tried to explain the plot of the novel I'm trying to write, and why I still need to outline it instead of starting to write yet. But it was so hard to explain because I didn't know any of the words I needed, like "characters", "draft", "outline", "plot", etc, and I definitely didn't have the vocabulary to summarize a science-fiction novel. It was frustrating. At the end of the lesson, I told my tutor that I would really like to learn more words so I can speak more fluidly. To start, he gave me a list of common adverbial phrases, so I imported all of them into Anki.

Next week, I want to do the following to be more prepared for my French lesson:
- Learn how to say "Can you repeat that?", "I don't know how to phrase what I am trying to say", "What does _ mean?", and similar phrases in French, so I don't have to switch to English as often.
- Make more Anki flashcards for common words. Or maybe make word lists instead?
- Practice speaking more often, not just writing.

[philomath]

Sunday
- Did Pimsleur French I Lesson 23.
- Watched French YouTube videos for 42 minutes.
- Made 37 flashcards based on a list of the 5000 most common French words. I went down the list and made flashcards until the 300th most common word.
- Studied 63 Anki flashcards.

One of my goals this week was to read 50 pages of Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban. Unfortunately, I didn't read it at all. Now that I don't have to commute to work, my designated reading time is gone. I need to figure out how to fit it into my new schedule!

Also, I decided to give up on my French subs2srs project already. I think I learned some words, but it wasn't worth the amount of flashcards I had to make and review.

These are my goals for next week:

Spanish
[ ] Read Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban for 10 minutes each day.

French
[ ] Do 2 hours of listening practice.
[ ] Do Pimsleur French I Lessons 24-25.
[ ] Make Anki flashcards, either from a frequency list or from vocabulary lists in my notebook.
[ ] Practice speaking twice (not counting my French lesson on Saturday).
[ ] Practice writing four times, and post the writing on iTalki for corrections.

[philomath]

Monday
- Read Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban for 10 minutes.
- Reviewed 80 Anki flashcards.
- Listened to episode 6 of the innerFrench podcast. I understood this episode really well, even without reading the transcript! I think I understood so much because the episode was about language-learning, which is a topic I'm very familiar with. Still, it was exciting to understand so well.
- Wrote 85 words in French about my day. I actually felt like doing some speaking practice today, but living with four other people means there isn't always privacy to start speaking French to yourself. At least, I'd feel self conscious about it. Hopefully tomorrow I have more time by myself though!
- Watched another episode of The Hookup Plan, using the Language Learning with Netflix Google Chrome extension.

Overall, it was a productive day for French.

[philomath]

Tuesday
- Did my daily 10 minutes of reading Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban.
- Reviewed my Anki flashcards.

Wednesday
This morning I bought two ebooks of French short stories: one by Lingo Mastery and one by Olly Richards and Richard Simcott. I've been thinking that I should start reading in French, and these short stories seemed like a good place to start!

I finally did some speaking practice today. I should've recorded myself but I didn't feel like it. I spoke for 12 minutes though, so that's pretty good! Often when I'm just talking to myself I get tired after 5 minutes, so 12 minutes feels like a success. I also did Pimsleur French I Lesson 24. This lesson was all about asking for directions and had a lot of Rs: route, à droite, tout droit. My throat hurt so much by the end.

[philomath]

Thursday
- Read Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban for 10 minutes.

Friday
- Practiced speaking French for 18(!) minutes. I talked about some of the movies that I've been watching with my roommates and something that happened at work recently.
- Reviewed 181 Anki flashcards.
- Wrote 39 words in French. I wanted to write more but I couldn't think of a topic. I should make a list of possible topics for next time.

[philomath]

Today I had another French lesson! This one went pretty well. We talked about the difficulties of working from home and my experience with Spanish iTalki lessons/language exchanges. This lesson I really pushed myself to speak more French. I even asked some questions in French which is usually something I struggle with.

Afterward, I watched two episodes of The Hookup Plan. I've now watched the first season two times. I'm not sure if my listening comprehension has gotten better, but I've definitely learned some new words! I think that's good. I'm excited to start watching the second season of the show.

I also reviewed 75 Anki flashcards, and then I made ~20 new flashcards based on words from a frequency list. I think in general I prefer to learn words in context, but sometimes frequency lists are more efficient. Probably especially at the beginning of learning a new language. Finally, I wrote 151 words on my experience studying Spanish, which I posted on iTalki. I'm glad I'm doing more writing, but I feel like I need to do even more. I don't want to get burnt out though.

I really enjoy learning French, but I'm already thinking about which language I'll study next. I think I'll most likely study German. My boyfriend lived in Berlin for a couple of months and really wants to go on a trip there sometime, and I'll be so disappointed in myself if I don't learn the language before going! I think there are also a lot of German books and TV shows that I would enjoy--for example, one of my favorite childhood books, Inkheart, was originally written in German. Learning German would also make it easier for me to learn Yiddish someday, which I would really love. My grandma spoke Yiddish growing up and would teach me fun words sometimes. Anyway, I'm not planning to start German very soon, but perhaps this autumn? I definitely need to solidify my French knowledge a bit more before I add another language.

[philomath]

Today I did Lesson 25 of Pimsleur French I. I can't believe I'm almost done with it! I've used Pimsleur for Spanish and Italian but I've never completed a full level. I also wrote 194 words in French about my attempts to exercise more since I'm stuck in the house all day, and I watched a few YouTube videos in French. I like watching travel vlogs, but they're not always the best for language-learning because there's a lot of background noise. Some of them are good though.

I did really well on my language goals this week! Here they are:

Spanish
[X] Read Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban for 10 minutes each day.

French
[X] Do 2 hours of listening practice.
[X] Do Pimsleur French I Lessons 24-25.
[X] Make Anki flashcards, either from a frequency list or from vocabulary lists in my notebook.
[X] Practice speaking twice (not counting my French lesson on Saturday). (Practiced speaking for 30 minutes by myself and 45 minutes during my iTalki lesson.)
[X] Practice writing four times, and post the writing on iTalki for corrections. (Wrote 473 words.)

Next week I want to learn more grammar. I might go back to using Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar because I want to do more conjugation exercises. These are my goals:

Spanish
[ ] Read Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban for 10 minutes each day.

French
[ ] Do 2 hours of listening practice.
[ ] Do Pimsleur French I Lessons 26-27.
[ ] Study grammar for 15 minutes each day.
[ ] Review the vocab lists in my notebook and make Anki flashcards for some of the words.
[ ] Review the recent corrections on my iTalki notebook entries.