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

[philomath]

Thursday
Today I reviewed some sentences on Clozemaster. I hadn't been on Clozemaster in a long time, so there were 650 sentences for me to review. I only got through 200 of them today. I also watched another episode of The Circle: France.

[philomath]

Friday
On Friday I reviewed the 450 remaining sentences on Clozemaster. I also reread Chapter 2 of French Short Stories for Beginners while listening to the audiobook. This time I listened to it at 0.75x speed first, and then at normal speed the second time. I also watched some French YouTube videos, but I couldn't really find any that interested me.

Saturday
Today I had another French lesson, and it went really well! We talked about my experience driving in the city for the first time this week, and then we talked about my living situation and potential coronavirus vaccines. At the end of the lesson, my tutor said that my French was really good! Maybe the reality TV I've been watching lately has helped.

I'm really glad I found a French tutor I like. I had a lot of trouble finding Spanish tutors on iTalki, and even with the ones who I liked, I always felt like our lessons were a little bit awkward. With my French tutor I feel like we're actually kind of friends? Maybe it's because other tutors I've had liked to talk about less personal topics, whereas with my French tutor we talk about how our weeks went.

(Btw, I'm not sure why I've gotten in the habit of referring to them as iTalki "tutors" rather than teachers? Maybe it's because I view them as helping me with the language vs. teaching me the whole thing. Either way the phrase "iTalki tutor" has stuck in my vocabulary.)

I also finished Chapter 21 of Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar, which was all about subject pronouns, direct object pronouns, and indirect object pronouns. I didn't like this chapter very much. I felt like the explanations of the grammar could've been better. However, maybe I just rushed through the chapter too fast. After finishing all the exercises, I still felt a bit confused about the word order. I found an article from Lawless French that cleared up my confusion though.

Anyway, usually when I go through Practice Makes Perfect, I take notes in my French notebook. However this time I found myself writing too much. I ended up with at least three pages of notes and it was exhausting. Next time I'll only use my notebook for writing down helpful example sentences.

[philomath]

Spanish
[X] Read Chapters 3-4 of Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego.

French
[X] Do 2 hours of listening.
[X] Practice speaking twice (not counting my iTalki lesson on Saturday).
[X] Do Chapter 4 and Chapter 21 of Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar.
[X] Review the corrections I received on my last two iTalki notebook entries.

I completed all of my goals this week! Today I read Chapter 4 of Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego and I practiced speaking French for 11 minutes. I also reviewed my Anki flashcards and some sentences on Clozemaster.

Tomorrow I don't have work because it's Memorial Day in the United States, but starting on Tuesday I'll be going to the office every day instead of working from home. Because of social distancing rules, some of my coworkers will be going in the morning and I will be going in the afternoon/evening, so it's definitely going to be a late day for me. Also, because taking public transportation might be risky, I'll be driving to work...and I've barely driven in my life, much less in a city, so I'm very nervous. This is all just to say that I'm not planning to do many language-related things next week. Here are my goals:

Spanish
[ ] Read Chapter 5 of Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego.

French
[ ] Do 2 hours of listening.
[ ] Keep reviewing Anki flashcards.
[ ] Review more sentences on Clozemaster.

[philomath]

I didn't do any Spanish or French during the week, not even reviewing my Anki flashcards. It was my first full week going to the office instead of working from home, and the new schedule made me so tired. Fortunately driving to work went really well! I guess all of my nervousness about driving in the city was for nothing.

This morning I had another French lesson with my iTalki tutor. It went really well! It's nice having lessons with him every week because each lesson feels like continuing the last week's conversation. For example this week he started the lesson by asking me what it was like returning to work and whether I had survived driving to work every day. We spent most of the lesson talking about the novel I'm writing: first I explained the plot to him as well as I could (it's a complicated plot to explain in English because there are multiple timelines), and then we talked about writing routines and how it's better to wait to edit your work until you're done writing it. From there we ended up talking about different social media networks. I realized that lately I've actually been able to speak in French for most of our lessons! I mean I have to pause a lot to ask about grammar and vocab, but I can usually say what I want to say without reverting back to English for the whole sentence.

My iTalki tutor said I'm making good progress with my French, and he had an idea for something we could try: I will make a short video of myself speaking in English about any topic I want, without scripting the video at all, and he will make a video of himself saying the same things but in French. He thinks this will help me speak French more naturally, with all of the French equivalents of "Uhhh", "Well....", "You know...", etc. Because he often corrects me on grammar and vocab when I speak, but it's hard to tell someone how to speak more naturally. I'm excited to try this idea! Now I just need to make the video.

Do any of you ever get stressed out when you find a good resource for one target language but know you won't have it for future languages? I have felt this way about course books and now I feel that way about my iTalki tutor. I really like his method of teaching French and I'm sad that he can't also teach me other languages. When I start learning German, can I ask whatever German tutor I find to use similar methods? I feel like many tutors might be set in their ways and might not appreciate a student asking for a specific teaching style. I suppose it depends on the person though.

[philomath]

I'm still getting used to my new work schedule, so next week's goals will be lighter than usual:

Spanish
[ ] Read Chapter 5 of Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego.

French
[ ] Do 2 hours of listening.
[ ] Make a video in English in preparation for my iTalki lesson. (As I mentioned in my last post, my iTalki tutor will translate the video into French for me to memorize.)
[ ] Read two more short stories.
[ ] Stay on top of reviewing Anki flashcards.

[philomath]

After another week of feeling unmotivated, today I finally got back to studying French. I watched the fifth episode of The Circle: France, practiced speaking for 15 minutes, and reviewed my Anki flashcards.

[philomath]

Next week I want to be more productive. I'll be working from home in the mornings and going to the lab in the afternoons, but hopefully I won't be too tired after work. I decided that I'll ease back into my French studies by focusing on input rather than output for the week:

Spanish
[ ] Read Chapter 5 of Harry Potter y el cáliz de fuego.

French
[ ] Do 3 hours of listening.
[ ] Make a video in English in preparation for my iTalki lesson.
[ ] Read three more short stories.
[ ] Review Anki flashcards and Clozemaster sentences.

[philomath]

Tuesday
- Did 40 minutes of listening: watched a couple of YouTube videos in French and listened to the French Short Stories for Beginners audiobook while reading along.
- Reviewed my Anki flashcards.

[philomath]

Today I had another French lesson with my iTalki tutor. This lesson did not go great. :/ I haven't studied French much lately, and I had a lot of trouble remembering really simple words and phrases, so I kept making mistakes. I also felt like I didn't have much to talk about. Next week I need to study French more so I'm more prepared.

Maybe making a mini project for myself would help me regain my motivation? Like watching a certain number of TV episodes in French while writing down vocab words, reading a certain number of short stories in French, or writing in my diary in French every day for a week. Today I'll think about what mini project I should do.

[eido]

Today I had another French lesson with my iTalki tutor. This lesson did not go great. :/ I haven't studied French much lately, and I had a lot of trouble remembering really simple words and phrases, so I kept making mistakes. I also felt like I didn't have much to talk about. Next week I need to study French more so I'm more prepared.

When I have trouble with this, I try to remember to pick a topic to talk about beforehand and always try to involve the other person. So, for instance, a conversation might follow this course:

A: "I was just reading an article about Notre Dame in France."
B: "Oh, really? What'd they say about it?"
A: *proceeds to summarize the article* "What do you think about that?" *notes her own opinion as reference* "You're French, so you must have something to say! What's everyone saying where you live?" (aka the hot goss )

Try to always ask people what they think, and keep doing it in a pattern; that way, the conversation propels forward. And just pick slightly related topics to the one you started out with, like street food in France and coronavirus or how your own country has dealt with the epidemic and what you think will happen in the next few months. Take turns. You'd be surprised what you can accomplish! And if you need prompts, I'm sure your teacher could provide a couple.