Michelle's 2020 Log (Spanish, French, Korean, German, Italian)

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-El indiano: chapters 41-42
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 46
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 7 exercises
-Élite (season 3): episodes 3-8 (done!)

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 32-33
-French newspapers: nothing
-Plan cœur: episodes 9-10
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 8.03-8.04, 9.01-9.03
-Duolingo: 792 -> 813 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.27-3.28
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 7/7 days (173/173 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: chapter 11
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Chicago Typewriter (시카고 타자기): episodes 1-16
-Itaewon Class (이태원 클라쓰): episodes 1-11
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 20
-German newspapers: nothing
-Dark: episode 18 (done!)
-Duolingo: 301 -> 307 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 10-11
-A-Grammatik: started lesson 1.1.4

Italian
-Duolingo: 70 -> 73 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 5.02-5.03
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 1


Mostly back on track this week, although now that I'm working from home for the foreseeable future, I need to figure out a time each day I can read newspaper articles, since that's normally something I'd do on my commute. While I haven't had an issue fitting in most of my language activities, in general I've been finding it hard to fit in reading at all. Normally I'd try to read a lot more than I have been. But I've been finding it hard to focus my attention on reading even in English these days, so I'm trying not to push myself too hard at the moment, since that'll only lead me to burn out again. I figure doing 1-2 short chapters per week is better than nothing, and better than pushing myself to read more than that and then not reading anything for a month.

Spanish:
I mentioned Élite being more of a challenge last week, but actually after the first couple episodes I felt pretty comfortable with it. I finished season 3 (which I didn't like as much as the first two seasons, but it was still entertaining enough) and also managed to hit 500 hours of Spanish listening comprehension this week (total over the course of the past 2-3 years). Spanish has definitely become very low effort for me to understand. In one of the Plan cœur episodes I was watching this week, one of the characters said a sentence in Spanish, and for a second I was surprised how easily I understood it compared to everything else in the show before realizing it was said in Spanish, not French. Anyways, I'm not sure what I'm going to jump to next for listening comprehension. The fourth season of La casa de papel will be on Netflix a week from this Friday, and I know I'm going to want to watch that immediately, so I don't want to start anything too time-intensive.

I'm at a part of Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive where they just reprint previous exercises out of order and have you do them again, which makes it a little hard to track what I've done, so I've just started tracking total exercises completed per week. I'm progressing through the book pretty slowly, but I've definitely found it more helpful than the Practice Makes Perfect Subjunctive book. Although at this point I'm finding I have most of the general rules/triggers down and it's just a matter of practicing as much as possible to feel more comfortable with them. Luckily the book gives a decent amount of practice.

Korean:
I decided to rewatch Chicago Typewriter this week because I was in the mood for something comforting that I knew I'd enjoy. Unfortunately Netflix doesn't have Korean subtitles available, so I couldn't use the Language Learning with Netflix extension to display both English and Korean subtitles. I did feel like I was able to recognize more words/sentences (with the aid of the English subtitles, of course) than when I first watched the show about a year ago. After that, I decided to check out Itaewon Class, which is also on Netflix and also without Korean subtitles. At first, I wasn't sure if I'd be that into it, but I quickly got sucked in after the first couple episodes. I should finish it this week.

German:
I finally finished Dark! I liked the show, although I probably should've waited until my German comprehension was higher to watch it. It's the kind of show where I think even if I had watched it all with English subtitles, I would struggle to remember who is who in each timeline and how everyone's related and all of that. I may rewatch it at some point in the future when my German comprehension is better to see if I can get more out of it. I do feel like my comprehension improved aver the course of the 18 episodes, at least, so it's not like it was totally useless. I am excited to check out something new, though.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-El indiano: chapters 43-44
-Spanish newspapers: 1 article
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 47
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 7 exercises
-Nailed It! Spain: episodes 1-5

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 34-35
-French newspapers: 2 articles
-Plan cœur: episodes 11-12
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 9.04-9.11
-Duolingo: 813 -> 834 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 3.29-3.31
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 3 Memrise: 7/7 days (173/173 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 12
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (series) (이태원 클라쓰): episodes 12-16
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): prologue, chapters 1-2
-What's Wrong with Secretary Kim (김비서가 왜 그럴까): episodes 1-16
-Another Miss Oh (또! 오해영): episode 1
-Thirty but Seventeen (서른이지만 열일곱입니다): episodes 1-5
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapter 21
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episode 1
-Duolingo: 307 -> 311 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 12-13
-A-Grammatik: lesson 1.1.4

Italian
-Duolingo: 73 -> 75 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 5.04-5.05, 6.01
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 2

Spanish:
I started Nailed It! Spain this week because I wanted something that wouldn't take up too much time and that I wouldn't feel bad about dropping when La casa de papel season 4 comes on Netflix this coming weekend. I ended up watching more of the show than expected (it was a good show to put on in the background while I was cooking), so I only have 1 episode left, which I'll finish tomorrow. My comprehension was not surprisingly been solid.

Korean:
I've been really motivated with Korean recently. I finished Itaewon Class, which I really enjoyed. After that, I decided to rewatch What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, which I watched last summer and remembered liking well enough but having some issues with. However, the lead actor is the same one as in Itaewon Class, and I wanted to watch more of him after finishing that show, so I decided to rewatch it. Rewatching it reminded me of some of the issues I had with it, but it was enjoyable enough. Then I started Another Miss Oh, and I liked the first episode but wasn't in the mood to continue with it, so I put that on hold (I'll probably return to it at a later date) and decided to rewatch Thirty But Seventeen instead. I've already watched it twice before, but it's a comfort show for me, and with everything going on right now, that's the kind of thing I need.

It's been fun to rewatch it for a second time because I can feel myself picking up more than I did last fall. In the past, I'd only really be able to pick up short sentences/individual words, but now I'm able to process slightly longer sentences. I think my Korean reading speed (of the subtitles, since I've been using both Korean and English subtitles) has improved. I remember a few months ago mentioning that I was able to process entire syllables and how that was new for me (before that I had been processing each letter individually), but now I think I'm at a point where I'm able to process entire words at once.

The other major thing this week is that I started reading the webtoon that the Itaewon Class series was adapted from (also called Itaewon Class). I've mentioned before that I think reading a lot has been one of the activities that's helped me progress best in the languages I've studied. However, up to this point, I'd largely held off on doing any kind of reading with Korean because my vocab is still too weak, and I felt like even trying to read newspaper articles would be too challenging. I had thought about checking out webtoons before (because those at least provide visual context to help comprehension), but they still felt beyond my level. But I think the difference here is that I'm already familiar with the story from having watched the show. Additionally, I really enjoyed the show and was sorry to finish it, so it's a story I'm already invested in. I may not end up finishing the entire webtoon because it is very time-consuming, and there's a good chance I'll lose my motivation at some point and it'll feel like more trouble than it's worth. But I'm thinking of it like how I translated Estoy vivo subtitles from Spanish to English, and that really helped me internalize some grammar structures/slang. It was very time-consuming and not something I'd want to do with every show I watch, but I do feel like it improved my Spanish. I figure even going through a few chapters of Itaewon Class will help my Korean, even if I don't end up finishing it.

So far what I've been doing is just reading 1 panel, seeing how much of the gist I can get, and then translating the sentences using Naver Papago. The translations aren't always perfect, but I usually have a good enough idea of what's being said based on having watched the show. There are some panels where I have no idea what's being said, some where I understand some words and have a general sense of what's being said, and some that I understand perfectly right away and don't feel the need to translate. The ones in the last category are very few and far between, and they're usually pretty simple sentences, but it's still exciting any time I can understand an entire panel without needing to translate it. It's certainly better than I would've been able to do a year ago!

The one last recent improvement in my Korean is that I've gotten much better at typing using the Korean keyboard. In general this year I've been slowly learning to type because some of the Today's Korean by Naver exercises require an answer to be typed in. In those cases, I'd use this Korean keyboard to type up my answer and then paste it in. Since I've been doing that now for 3 months or so, I've gotten much better at remembering where different letters are. This week, since I started reading Itaewon Class, I've been typing each sentence up to translate them (since it's a webtoon, the text is in image form, so I can't just copy and paste it to directly translate it). Rather than using the Korean keyboard I linked, I've been switching my keyboard to the Korean layout and typing up sentences in a TextEdit document on my laptop, and then copying and pasting them to translate from there, and I haven't needed to look at the Korean keyboard to know where letters are (there are still a couple I get mixed up, but it's not too bad). It's not like that has any impact on my comprehension of Korean, but it is nice to be able to type in Korean without much effort, and it feels like a step forward in my Korean-learning in any case.

German:
Since I finished Dark last week, I started Babylon Berlin this week. I'm only one episode in, but I'm interested enough so far. I watched the episode first without any subtitles and then with both German and English subtitles simultaneously. My comprehension of the episode without subtitles wasn't great, but that should improve as I get more familiar with the characters/plot. The past couple weeks it's seemed like I've needed to look up fewer words than usual when reading Harry Potter, so I'm hoping this means my German vocab is starting to improve.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-El indiano: chapters 45-46
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-FSI Basic Spanish: started unit 48
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 7 exercises
-Nailed It! Spain: episode 6 (done!)
-La casa de papel (season 4): episodes 1-3

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 36-37
-French newspapers: 1 article
-Plan cœur: episodes 13-14 (done!)
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 9.12-9.17, 10.01-10.02
-Duolingo: 834 -> 855 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.01-4.02
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (9/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: chapter 12
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): chapters 3-10
-Thirty but Seventeen (서른이지만 열일곱입니다): episodes 6-16 (done!)
-Touch Your Heart (진심이 닿다): episodes 1-12
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapters 22-23
-German newspapers: 1 article
-Babylon Berlin: episode 3
-Duolingo: 311 -> 317 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 14-15
-A-Grammatik: lessons 1.2-1.3

Italian
-Duolingo: 75 -> 78 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 6.02-6.04
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lessons 3-4

Spanish:
Started the new season of La casa de papel and should finish it this week. Like Élite, it's one of the more challenging shows for me to understand, so it's good practice for me. I'm considering rewatching the entire show after I finish the season. If I don't do that, I'm not really sure what I'm going to watch next. It's not like there aren't always plenty of Spanish shows out there to watch, but I don't really have anything in mind for what to watch next.

French:
Technically finished Plan cœur this week, although I haven't rewatched the final episode with subtitles yet, which I still plan on doing. I can't say that I feel like my comprehension improved much over the course of the show. It may just be that it wasn't long enough (14 half-hour episodes), or there was too much slang for me to pick everything up. I had been using Language Learning with Netflix to rewatch episodes with both French and English subtitles simultaneously, but I think that was a bad idea because I'd end up focusing on the English instead of connecting the French subtitles to what was being said. I think for French (and German, where I've also been doing this), I need to go back to just rewatching episodes with TL subtitles only and pausing to look up unknown words. It was convenient to be able to use the English subtitles so I didn't have to take the time to look up things, but I just don't think it's doing me as much good. Anyways, I have no idea what I'm going to watch next. On the one hand, I think I'd like to choose something that has more/longer episodes so I have more time to get adjusted to accents/plot/etc. and something that's not a comedy and/or won't have a ton of slang — basically, something a bit easier to understand overall. On the other hand, given the state of the world at the moment, I'm not really in the mood for anything dark/serious. I also think it would be helpful for me to do some more intensive work with French at some point (something like subs2srs, or translating episodes from French to English, both of which I did with Spanish and I felt helped me a good amount), but I'm not sure if I have the energy/focus for that at the moment.

Korean:
I finished rewatching Thirty but Seventeen and decided to follow it up by rewatching Touch Your Heart. I enjoy the show, but I think I'm starting to get a little tired of rewatching things. After I finish Touch Your Heart, I think I'll switch to something new. Reading the Itaewon Class webtoon has been going well. Having watched the show helps a lot in providing context for any imperfect translations. I've made a lot more progress with it than I expected, but I'll probably slow down with it, both because I'm feeling a little less motivated with Korean than I was just a week ago, and also because there are only a certain amount of chapters that are currently free to read, and it looks like an additional chapter becomes available every 3-4 days, so eventually I'll be able to read it all, but if I start reading too quickly, I'll run out of available chapters to read. So far I feel like I am picking a few things up. There's been some vocab that's come up enough for me to pick up on, and a couple grammar structures that I haven't been introduced to yet but have come up frequently enough that I looked them up and now have at least some basic knowledge of what they are.

Italian:
I haven't talked a lot about Italian recently, mostly because there's not much to say. I wouldn't say it's going that well. I mean, it's fine, but my progress is just really slow (it probably doesn't help that I'm solely doing grammar/Duolingo). I think it was good to drop Italian Grammar Drills and switch to Nuova Grammatica Pratica (although so far NGP has only covered topics I've already been exposed to, which makes it a bit easier), but I feel like even PMP Complete Italian requires more knowledge of Italian than I currently have. I'm trying not to worry too much about having to look up vocab to complete exercises that I haven't already learned, or rely on following examples closely. I'm trying to trust that with enough exposure to the language, everything will sort into place in my head eventually.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-El indiano: chapters 47-51 (done!)
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 48
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 6 exercises
-La casa de papel (season 4): episodes 4-8 (done!)
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 1-2

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 38-40
-French newspapers: 2 articles
-The Bonfire of Destiny/Le Bazar de la charité: episodes 1-2
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 10.03-10.13
-Duolingo: 855 -> 876 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.03-4.04
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (23/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 13
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): chapter 11
-Touch Your Heart (진심이 닿다): episodes 13-15
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapters 24-25
-German newspapers: 4 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 4-7
-Duolingo: 317 -> 325 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 16-17
-A-Grammatik: lesson 1.4.1-1.4.2

Italian
-Duolingo: 78 -> 83 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 7.01-7.05
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: started lesson 5

Spanish:
I finished La casa de papel season 4 and then started Unauthorized Living (Vivir sin permiso), which is a show from Spain on Netflix. It's not the most original show I've seen (it's about a rich family and involves murder and drugs and betrayal and so on), but it's entertaining enough so far. I'm not finding it too challenging to understand, although I know I've missed some details.

I also finished El indiano this week, which I've been reading since around last fall. It's a historical romance novel, so I learned some new vocab from the historical element, but overall it wasn't too challenging. I'm struggling to figure out what to read next. Part of the issue is that I'm generally not really in the mood to read, so nothing looks very appealing to me right now. I might end up going back to a YA fantasy book from an author I've previously read that I feel fairly confident I'll enjoy, but I also feel like I should be stretching my Spanish by reading something more challenging.

French:
I started The Bonfire of Destiny (Le Bazar de la Charité) this week, which is on Netflix. It's a miniseries about a fire in Paris that occurred in 1897 at a charity bazar. So far, I think it was a good choice. Because it's set in the 19th century, there isn't a ton of slang, and I'm finding the story interesting. I feel like my comprehension of the first couple episodes was better than Plan coeur, although a large part of the first episode is everyone screaming and running from the fire, so that made it easier to follow!

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Una sonata de verano: chapters 1-40 (done!)
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 49
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 6 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 3-4

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 41-47
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-The Bonfire of Destiny/Le Bazar de la charité: episodes 3-6
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 10.14-10.21
-Duolingo: 876 -> 897 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.05-4.06
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (33/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: part of chapter 13
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): chapter 12
-Touch Your Heart (진심이 닿다): episode 16 (done!)
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapters 26-28
-German newspapers: 5 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 8-14
-Duolingo: 325 -> 329 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 18-19
-A-Grammatik: lesson 1.5-1.6.1

Italian
-Duolingo: 83 -> 88 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 8.01-8.02
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 5


Spanish:
So last week I said I wasn't sure what I was going to go read next in Spanish, whether I wanted to go for a comforting fantasy YA or something more challenging. I ended up going for the comforting fantasy YA, but I told myself I would try to do more reading per week than usual (typically my maximum goal is 50 pages per week, which I often don't reach, especially lately, and I was thinking of bumping that up to 100 pages per week). But then I ended up getting sucked into the book and finished the entire thing. I enjoyed the beginning more than I liked how everything wrapped up in the end, but my early enjoyment pushed me to read the whole thing. It definitely felt pretty easy to read, although I would still have to look up 1-2 words every page or so. It was nice to realize how comfortable reading Spanish is for me. I obviously read much slower than in English, but it doesn't feel like a struggle. I would have more trouble doing the same in German, or even French. Usually with my German reading, I have to break up one 20-page chapter into chunks of 5 pages maximum and then take a break. Anyways, I think that was good practice for me, and a way to stretch my Spanish with an easier book. I think I'm going to start Largo pétalo de mar by Isabel Allende next. I've never read any of her books before (although I've heard a lot about them), and this one was recommended to me by a friend, so I'm looking forward to checking it out.

French:
I've been feeling a bit more motivated this past week (or maybe less motivated and more just that I have extra time and no idea what to do with it, and working on languages is an easy way to both entertain myself and feel productive while I'm stuck at home), so I've been doing a little extra French (and German as well). I'm a bit tired of Le cœur de la terre (it's not that it's bad, I've just been reading books in this series for roughly a year now, and I think I'm ready to move on), and I'm not too far from the end, so I decided to make more of an effort to read 50 pages per week (previously I had been doing just 2 chapters, which usually came out to around 10-20 pages maximum). Since I have approximately 100 pages left, that'll have me finishing the book in two weeks, which seems manageable, and then I can move on to something else for awhile.

I've also been watching a bit more French TV than normal. I watched 4 episodes of Le Bazar de la Charité this week (first without subtitles, then with French subtitles only, so it felt more like watching 8 episodes), and I do feel like my comprehension has been much better than it was with Plan cœur. I think there are a number of possible reasons for that (less slang due to the time period it's set in, watching a bunch in a row rather than spread out over several weeks, having an easier plot to follow even if I miss some dialogue, rewatching episodes with French subtitles only and not adding English subtitles, etc.) but in any case, it's nice to feel like my French comprehension has been improving. I've been liking the show a bit less as it's gone on, but it's not bad. There are only two episodes left, which I'll probably finish this week.

German:
My experience with German this week has been very similar to French this week. I'm very close to the end of Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz, so I've been trying to read a bit extra to get through it. I only have two chapters left and should be able to finish it this week. After that, I plan on leaving Harry Potter behind (for German, at least) and finding something originally written in German to read.

I also have been watching a ton of Babylon Berlin (as with Le Bazar de la Charité, each episode first without subtitles and then a second time with German subtitles only). I definitely feel like my comprehension has been better than it was with Dark, although at least part of that may just be because the plot isn't quite as complicated as Dark's was. I'm enjoying the show a lot, which also has been pushing me to watch more of it.

Italian:
When I finish Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz, my plan is to continue on to the final book in Italian. This may be a bad idea because my Italian is still incredibly weak, but I'm hoping doing some reading will give me an extra push and help me both pick up some vocab (especially since I've been avoiding using any kind of vocab frequency decks) and internalize some of the grammar I've been exposed to but don't have down yet. My initial goal will be very low, something like 5 pages a week (or even less if I'm really struggling), but I'm hoping after a couple chapters of struggle, it'll get easier for me. I feel like I need to do something to push my Italian, and I read the first Harry Potter book in Spanish pretty shortly after I started learning Spanish and was able to get through it based on my background in French and already being familiar with the story, so I'm hoping I can do the same thing here.

[tungemål]

I also have been watching a ton of Babylon Berlin (as with Le Bazar de la Charité, each episode first without subtitles and then a second time with German subtitles only). I definitely feel like my comprehension has been better than it was with Dark, although at least part of that may just be because the plot isn't quite as complicated as Dark's was. I'm enjoying the show a lot, which also has been pushing me to watch more of it.

I also intend to watch Babylon Berlin some time in the future. How would you rate the difficulty of understanding this show without subtitles? Is it manageable?

I think, by the way, that the method of watching first without subtitles and then with, is very effective! I also do this, but usually only 10-15 minutes stretches and then I go back and check things I didn't understand.

[brokenrecord]

I also have been watching a ton of Babylon Berlin (as with Le Bazar de la Charité, each episode first without subtitles and then a second time with German subtitles only). I definitely feel like my comprehension has been better than it was with Dark, although at least part of that may just be because the plot isn't quite as complicated as Dark's was. I'm enjoying the show a lot, which also has been pushing me to watch more of it.

I also intend to watch Babylon Berlin some time in the future. How would you rate the difficulty of understanding this show without subtitles? Is it manageable?

I think, by the way, that the method of watching first without subtitles and then with, is very effective! I also do this, but usually only 10-15 minutes stretches and then I go back and check things I didn't understand.

I don't think it's too difficult to manage Babylon Berlin without subtitles, although that's mostly in comparison to Dark (which I was watching before), which was hard to follow plot-wise even with English subtitles. Babylon Berlin is a bit easier because there doesn't seem to be a lot of slang and the plot isn't too hard to follow even if you miss some dialogue. My biggest challenge with German listening is just knowing all the vocab, so rewatching with subtitles gives me the opportunity to look up unknown words. Generally when I rewatch with subtitles I find that I've been able to follow the plot pretty well but with some details missing. It's rare that I have no idea what's going on in a scene.

Rewatching after 10-15 minute stretches seems reasonable, too! I think I prefer watching a whole episode at once because I know that the episode will take however many minutes and then be over, so I can fit it into my schedule/plans better. I also usually watch an episode all the way through one day, and then wait to rewatch it with subtitles later in the week, to help me from getting bored rewatching (although recently I've been rewatching episodes back to back because I haven't wanted to wait to watch further episodes). When my comprehension is a bit better, I'll probably just go back and rewatch only scenes where I feel like I was missing key details rather than entire episodes.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapters 1-2
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 50
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 2 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 5-6

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 48-53
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-The Bonfire of Destiny/Le Bazar de la charité: episodes 7-8 (done!)
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 10.22-10.25, 11.01
-Duolingo: 897 -> 918 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.07-4.08
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (47/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: finished chapter 13
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): chapter 13
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episodes 1-2
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz: chapters 29-30 (done!)
-German newspapers: 5 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 15-21
-Duolingo: 329 -> 335 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 20-21
-A-Grammatik: lesson 1.6.2

Italian
-Duolingo: 88 -> 91 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 8.03-8.05
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: started lesson 6

Spanish:
I started Largo pétalo de mar this week. It's definitely more challenging than the last book I read, especially since so far there have been a ton of longer, descriptive passages and not as much dialogue. It's interesting enough, though, and it should be a good challenge for me.

French:
I finished Le Bazar de la Charité. It wasn't a brilliant show, but it kept my attention well enough, and I think it was a reasonable level for me. I felt like my comprehension was better than for Plan cœur. I haven't decided for sure what to watch next, but I may alternate a TV show with some French movies, since there are a good amount of French movies I've watched in the past that I've enjoyed and would be a good practice to try to watch without subtitles.

Korean:
I started The King: Eternal Monarch this week. It just started airing, and they put up 2 episodes on Netflix per week. I've found it interesting enough so far, but if I find myself liking it less as it goes on, then I'll probably drop it. It does have Korean subtitles at least, so I'm able to use the Language Learning with Netflix extension to watch it with both English and Korean subtitles, which is nice.

German:
I finally finished Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz this week. I still find it more challenging to read in German than in Spanish or French, but my comprehension definitely improved over the course of the book. I'm excited to move on to something that's not Harry Potter, although I haven't figured out what yet. It probably would make sense to stick to something a bit easier like another YA book for now, but I'm a little tired of YA, and I think I'd rather read a book I find more interesting even if I have to look up a greater number of words.


I've been feeling my attention shifting away from languages this past week, so I may try to do a little less this week. My main goal is to finish Le cœur de la terre since I only have around 50 pages left, and I've been really enjoying Babylon Berlin, so I'll probably watch a decent amount of that, but otherwise I think I'll try to take it easy.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 51
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 1 exercise
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episode 7

French
-Le cœur de la terre: chapters 54-60 (done!)
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.02-11.06
-Duolingo: 918 -> 939 crowns (7/7 days)

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.09-4.10
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (60/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 14
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): nothing
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episodes 3-4
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 5 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 22-23
-Duolingo: 335 -> 339 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 22-23
-A-Grammatik: lesson 1.6.3

Italian
-Duolingo: 91 -> 93 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 9.01
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: part of lesson 6

Bit of a lighter week. I wasn't feeling as motivated to do as much as I'd normally aim to, but I tried to take it day by day and do at least some work each day. And I did manage to finally finish Le cœur de la terre, which was my main goal. I started the series sometime last year, and I definitely can tell how much my French comprehension has improved since that time. I've enjoyed the series, but I'm ready to move on to something more challenging, and it's a good stopping point since even though there are more books in the series, there's a natural conclusion to the story that's told over the first three books. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but I may take a break this week before moving on to something else.

I have a feeling I'm going to want to take things easy this week as well. I do want to at least figure out what I'm going to read next in German and watch next in French, since I took breaks from both of those this week after finishing Harry Potter und der Halbblutprinz and Le Bazar de la Charité last week. I also said I would start the last Harry Potter book in Italian, but I haven't attempted that yet. I'm on track to finally finish the French Duolingo tree next week, so I maybe hold off adding anything until I've done that, unless I'm feeling particularly motivated.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapters 3-4
-Spanish newspapers: 1 article
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 52
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 2 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episode 8

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 1-4
-French newspapers: 2 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.07-11.11
-Duolingo: 939 -> 960 crowns (7/7 days)
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episodes 1-2

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.10-4.11
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (75/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: chapter 14
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's vocab deck: 7/7 days
-Itaewon Class (webtoon) (이태원 클라쓰): part of chapter 14
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episode 5
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 24-25
-Duolingo: 339 -> 344 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lesson 24
-A-Grammatik: started lesson 2.1
-Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe: pages 5-14

Italian
-Duolingo: 93 -> 96 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 9.02-9.03
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 6


French:
I started Call My Agent/Dix pour cent this week. So far I definitely find it harder to understand than Le Bazar de la Charité, but I was able to follow the plot well enough and not miss too much, and the second episode felt easier to understand than the first (although I haven't rewatched it with subtitles yet, so I may find out that there were things I missed that I'm unaware of). I also started Ensemble, c'est tout this week. It feels a bit more challenging than the YA series I was reading before. It seems to have more slang, which is probably good for me to get more exposure to. The book was made into a movie as well, which I haven't watched before, so I'm planning to use that for listening comprehension practice after I finish the book.

German:
I started Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe this week. It's a pretty short book (really a novella) and doesn't have chapters, so I'm tracking page count instead. I'm trying to go through it fairly slowly both because it's short and I don't want to have to buy another book to replace it so quickly, and also because I'm definitely finding it more challenging than Harry Potter. Probably in part because I am unfamiliar with the plot, so I can't rely on knowledge of the story to fill in any gaps.


In general, I'm still kind of taking things day by day. There were some days this week where I didn't feel like doing anything at all and ended up doing almost nothing, but yesterday I was feeling a bit more motivated again, so I tried to take advantage of that. I'm assuming this week will be fairly similar.