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

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapters 5-7
-Spanish newspapers: 1 article
-FSI Basic Spanish: started unit 53
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 3 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 9-10
-Pan's Labyrinth/El laberinto del fauno: 119 minutes

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 5-16
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.12-11.19
-Duolingo: 960 -> 976 crowns (done!)
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 3

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.11-4.12
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (89/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 15
-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): finished chapter 14
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episodes 6-7
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 5 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episode 26
-Duolingo: 344 -> 352 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 25-26
-A-Grammatik: lessons 2.1-2.2
-Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe: pages 15-55

Italian
-Duolingo: 96 -> 98 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Complete Italian: 9.04-9.06
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 7
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 7-8

My motivation has continued to be up and down, but recently been more up. I'm finding that I've been in the mood to watch TV and even to read more (which I wasn't at the start of all of this), but I have very little desire to do any sort of grammar work. Which is actually kind of strange for me, since I typically find grammar fun. That really hits Korean and Italian the hardest, since that's where the bulk of my learning for those two languages comes from (although I finally added some Italian reading this week). I did manage to do pretty well this week, but I've had to push myself a bit more to get grammar done. I'm sure given some time it'll change and I'll be motivated to do grammar again, but I'm trying to accept slower progress in the meantime.

I haven't signed up for the Super Challenge because I typically don't do well with feeling added pressure to do things, so I think doing the challenge for real would backfire for me, but I saw jeffers' neat tracking spreadsheet, and I was a bit curious about how much reading/TV watching I do naturally, so I decided to use it to track my reading and TV-watching for Spanish, French, and German. I don't do enough reading in Italian/Korean or TV-watching in Italian for it to be worth tracking those as well. I started off with the goal of a full challenge for Spanish and half for French and German because I figure I naturally do more in Spanish than the other two, but the amount I was doing in French actually turned out to be more comparable to Spanish, so now I've set it for a full challenge in French as well. I am counting rewatches of episodes with TL subtitles in listening and not reading since that seems easiest. Despite the fact that I started this just to see how much I do naturally, I am finding it's pushing me to do more reading than I normally would. My TV-watching was already naturally high enough that I'm easily on track with that component for all three languages. I may end up abandoning this at some point if I find it takes too much effort to keep track of everything or if I start feeling too much pressure to keep up with it, but it's been fun to monitor so far.

Spanish:
I've been wanting to incorporate more movie-watching into my language-learning for awhile now (particularly for Spanish to push my listening skills more), but I had been finding it hard for a few reasons, including the fact that it always seems easier to just continue with whatever TV show I've been watching rather than pick a movie, and movies seem like more of a time-commitment to me (granted, episodes of The King: Eternal Monarch and Unauthorized Living are close to movie-length). But I decided I want to try to carve out some time in my schedule for movies, so my goal is 1 movie per week, alternating between Spanish, French, and German. I started this week with Spanish and watched El laberinto del fauno (Pan's Labyrinth). I had watched it once before during college, probably around 8-10 years ago, so while I was familiar with the plot, it's been long enough that I'd forgotten most of the details and dialogue. I was a little nervous about how challenging I'd find it because even though I feel really comfortable with Spanish TV, movies tend to be more difficult, and when I watched Y tu mamá también about a year ago, I remember being able to follow the plot generally but missing a lot of the dialogue. It turned out really well, though — my comprehension didn't feel significantly worse than with Unauthorized Living or other Spanish TV. It was rare for me to miss entire lines of dialogue — I would often miss a word or two, but still be able to follow things well. When I finished, I felt very accomplished and glad for having tried it, so hopefully I'll be able to make this a regular part of my schedule.

French:
I finished the Duolingo tree this week! I'm pretty sure I finished it once years ago (or at least came close), before the crown system was implemented, and then they added more to the tree. It feels nice to be done with both the Spanish and French trees now. My French is still weaker than my Spanish, so I was finding it a bit more useful even at the end than I found the Spanish tree, but I can also tell that my French is a lot stronger now than it was a year ago, so I'm excited to move on from it.

German:
Even though I said last week I was going to take Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe slowly, as I mentioned above, the Super Challenge spreadsheet has been pushing me to read more, so I read a lot more this week. I've really been enjoying it so far, and while it's more challenging than Harry Potter, I'm not finding it so challenging that it's frustrating me. There's a fair amount of vocab I have to look up, but the plot is fairly simple, and it's written in first person present tense, which I think also makes it a bit easier.

I'm very close to being done with Babylon Berlin. I had slowed down my pace with it a bit just because I was enjoying it so much that I didn't want it to end, but I only have two episodes left, so I think I might try to finish it this week.

Since I've finally finished the Duolingo French tree, my next Duolingo goal is to finish the German tree. I have a little over 250 crowns to go on the German tree. I had been going through the lessons pretty slowly previously (rather than trying to test out of crowns completely, like I was doing with French), but I'm going to make my goal a minimum of 1 German crown per day for the next two weeks. At that point, I should finish FSI Spanish, which will give me an extra 10 minutes or so every morning, so I should then have plenty of time to up my goal to 2 German crowns per day. That'll have me on track to finish the tree by the end of the year (assuming they don't add anything else to the tree in the meantime), which seems like a good timeline.

Italian:
I finally added some Italian reading this week with the final Harry Potter book. I'm tracking by pages rather than chapters because my goal is just 2 pages per week. I'll probably increase this a bit as my comprehension improves. The first two pages were definitely challenging, but it feels nice to be attempting a bit more with Italian than just Duolingo and grammar exercises. I calculated for the second page that I had to look up 56 of 327 words which means my comprehension was around 83%, which is actually a bit better than I was expecting. It was definitely time-consuming to look up so many words, but it wasn't too frustrating, and that should go down as I start acquiring more vocab.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapter 8
-Spanish newspapers: 3 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: units 53-54
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 2 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 11-13

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 17-25
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.20-11.21
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episodes 4-5
-Amélie/Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain: 2h02

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.15-4.16
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (98/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: chapter 15
-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 15
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹: 영원의 군주): episodes 8-9
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Babylon Berlin: episodes 27-28 (done!)
-Duolingo: 352 -> 361 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 27-28
-A-Grammatik: lesson 2.3
-Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe: pages 56-86

Italian
-Duolingo: 98 -> 103 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 1.01-1.03
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 8
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 8-9


This week I was doing really well until Saturday, when my car battery decided to die, which ended up kind of throwing off most of my plans for the day, including language study. I still managed to get a lot done, but I'm feeling a bit behind and mentally exhausted. I'm definitely glad to have a three-day weekend to rest and hopefully catch up a bit.

French:
I'm a bit behind on my French reading because of the aforementioned car issues. Although, when I say behind, I mean in terms of the Super Challenge, which I'm not doing for real, I'm supposed to just be tracking it for fun, so maybe I should stop worrying about it. I am actually finding it easier to stay on track in general with French reading than I was expecting, especially compared to Spanish. It's less that my French reading skills have leap-frogged my Spanish skills out of nowhere and more the choice of material — Largo pétalo de mar has long chapters full of dense paragraphs with tons of description which takes longer to get through even when I'm looking up fewer words, while Ensemble, c'est tout is a bunch of short chapters, many of which are primarily or entirely dialogue, so that helps me speed through it faster. I think it'll be tougher for me once I finish it and move on to other material.

Since I watched a Spanish film last week, this week it was time for a French film. I ended up watching Amélie, which I had previously seen at least once (if not twice,) before, but probably around 12-15 years ago, so while I was familiar with the plot, I obviously didn't recall most of the dialogue. I think it ended up going pretty well! I was expecting it to be more challenging than Dix pour cent, but it was around the same level for me. I would say my comprehension was around 60-70% (made up numbers, but that's roughly how it felt). I think it helped that the plot is simple, there's not a ton of really fast dialogue, and there's a lot of narration which is clearly enunciated and accompanies scenes that visually depict what's being narrated, so that provides extra context.

German:
I finished Babylon Berlin this week! It's a really excellent show, and I'd definitely recommend it. I think my comprehension improved a bit as I got further in the show, although my biggest struggle with German is still vocab. I think I just need a ton of input (especially reading) before I'll really feel an improvement there (unless I decide to finally add SRS for German vocab, but I'm trying to avoid that). I think this would be a good show to rewatch in the future to gauge how much my listening comprehension has improved.

Italian:
I got to the section of PMP Complete Italian on present tense verbs this week and found that there was a lot less practice and explanation than I'd like. The entire unit includes both the indicative and subjunctive regular and irregular verbs, and doesn't have a ton of exercises. I feel like I want much more practice on verb conjugations right now since I'm still learning the basics (I feel okay about present tense regular verbs, but I still need more practice with irregular conjugations, and I haven't been exposed to the subjunctive in Italian before). I glanced through PMP Italian Verbs, since I've liked the French and Spanish versions, and it looked like more what I need right now, so I ended up buying it. For now, I'm putting PMP Complete Italian on hold to focus on Nuova Grammatica Pratica and PMP Verb Tenses. When I'm done with Verb Tenses, I'll go back to Complete Italian (and let's not forget I still have Italian Grammar Drills which I put on hold a couple months ago but is waiting for me! I may have a problem with buying grammar books).

I also decided this week I should incorporate more Italian reading into my schedule in the form of Italian news articles. Right now my plan is to alternate days of French/German and Spanish/Italian articles, with Sunday off, so I get 3 articles per language per week. I could probably drop Spanish articles because I don't think I get a ton out of them anymore, but it's a habit and it feels weird to drop. It's not like I get zero use out of them, and they don't take a ton of time for me to read, so I'm keeping them for now. I'm also thinking I should up the amount of HP reading I do. I started off with just 2 pages per week, but I think I'll try to double that this week and see how it goes. If that doesn't seem too bad, I may even increase it further.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapters 9-12
-Spanish newspapers: 3 articles
-FSI Basic Spanish: unit 55 (done!)
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 7 exercises
-Unauthorized Living/Vivir sin permiso: episodes 14-23 (done!)
-Gran hotel: episodes 1-15
-La casa de las flores (season 3): episodes 1-2

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 26-38
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.22-11.28
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episodes 6-7

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.17-4.18
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (110/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 16
-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): started chapter 16
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹: 영원의 군주): episodes 10-11
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Charité: episode 1
-Duolingo: 361 -> 370 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 29-30
-A-Grammatik: lessons 2.4-2.5
-Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe: pages 87-117 (done!)
-Phoenix: 1h38

Italian
-Duolingo: 103 -> 107 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 1.04-1.08
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 9
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 10-13

This week was incredibly busy for me, and it was one of those weeks where it felt like everything was breaking (for example, my water heater), so I'm a bit surprised that it ended up being as productive as it was. I finished a number of things, and I did a ton of Spanish TV-watching.

Spanish:
The biggest accomplishment this week: I finished FSI Basic Spanish!!! I started it just about two years ago, and I did take a couple months off from it from time to time, but I found the best way for me to keep it up and not get burned out from all the drills was to just set aside 10 minutes every morning to work on it. When I first started it, I would go back and repeat drills where I made any mistakes, but after awhile I stopped and just went through the drills normally. I think there are enough opportunities to practice that it still helped anyways. And a lot of the time mistakes I would make had to do with not knowing specific types of vocab that may have been helpful for foreign diplomats 60 years ago but that weren't particularly useful for me to know. For the vast majority of drills, I was able to respond in the allotted time without any mistakes. I do think FSI helped my Spanish become more automatic (especially with verb conjugations), although as it took me two years to complete, it's hard to tell how much of the improvement was directly due to FSI and not just my Spanish generally improving. Anyways, I'm glad I used FSI, but I'm also glad to be done with it. I think I might want to use FSI French as well at some point, but I need a break from it for now. I'm thinking once I finish the German Duolingo tree (should be sometime in the fall), I'll have had enough of a break from FSI and will have some spare time, so it might make sense to pick it up then, but we'll see how I'm feeling.

I also finished Vivir sin permiso this week! I wasn't intending to, but I got hooked at the end of season 1 and found myself speeding through season 2. I still wouldn't say it's a great show (and there were characters/storylines I was less interested in), but I found it addictive. My comprehension was pretty good by the end — around 85-90%. After I finished it, I decided to start rewatching Gran hotel. I've watched it several times over the past 4 years (first with English subtitles, then Spanish subtitles, and then no subtitles twice), and while it's not a perfect show, I find it incredibly comforting. It's also fun to rewatch since it was the show I used to transition from subtitles to no subtitles, so I can still remember how challenging it was to understand a lot of the dialogue initially and contrast it with how easy it is now. If my comprehension of Vivir sin permiso was 85-90%, Gran hotel would be like 95-99%. And because my comprehension is so high and I don't need to worry about being able to follow the plot, I've been trying to use it to really hone in on the details and notice which tenses are being used and why, and so on. However, since Gran hotel isn't very challenging for me comprehension-wise, I decided to also start the third season of La casa de las flores. My comprehension is a little worse for that show, although I do feel like it's easier to understand than when I was watching seasons 1-2.

German:
I finished Baba Dunja's Letzte Liebe this week! Like I mentioned before, it was a very short book, so it wasn't too difficult to get through it. I liked it a lot. There wasn't a ton of plot (and the plot there was comes fairly late in the book and is a bit spoilery to discuss), but I enjoyed the main character. I also found myself having to look up fewer words as I made my way through it.

I started Charité this week, which is a series on Netflix about a hospital in Berlin in the late 19th century. I've only watched one episode, but it's interesting enough so far. My comprehension of the first episode was pretty poor, but I was watching it after a long day when I was distracted by other things, so I don't think that helped any. We'll see how I do with the remaining episodes.

It was time for German in my movie rotation, so I watched Phoenix this week. I had watched it previously about 4.5 years ago and really loved it. My comprehension was decent (better than for Charité), although I think I would've had a much harder time following the plot if I wasn't already familiar with it. I watched it on the Criterion Channel streaming service, which doesn't allow subtitles to be turned off, and I have a hard time not letting my attention be diverted to subtitles when they come on screen, even if I'm watching something in English with English-language subtitles, so I ended up having to cover part of the screen with post-it notes so I wouldn't read the subtitles. I actually had to do the same thing when I watched Amélie last week, since I watched it on HBO, which also didn't allow the subtitles to be removed. It was a little annoying, but it worked well enough. It's unfortunate more streaming services don't allow subtitles to be turned off, like Netflix does. Unfortunately the selection of German films on Netflix (in the US, at least) is pretty poor. If there weren't a pandemic going on, I could at least go to my library and have a decent selection of DVDs to choose from which would allow me turn off subtitles, but my library is (understandably) closed at the moment, so I'll just have to make do for the foreseeable future.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Largo pétalo de mar: chapter 13 (done!)
-Cuando reescribamos la historia: chapters 1-5
-Spanish newspapers: 3 articles
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 4 exercises
-Gran hotel: episodes 16-31
-La casa de las flores (season 3): episodes 3-6
-Everybody Knows/Todos lo saben: 2h13

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 39-49
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.29-11.32
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 8

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 4.19
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (125/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: chapter 16
-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 16
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episode 12
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Charité: episode 2
-Duolingo: 370 -> 389 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lessons 31-32
-A-Grammatik: lessons 2.6, 3.1
-Animant Crumbs Staubchronik: prologue, chapters 1-8

Italian
-Duolingo: 107 -> 111 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 1.09-1.14
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: lesson 10
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 14-17

I felt a little burnt out/overwhelmed by life midweek and didn't get to do everything I normally would. I think it was a combo of residual stress from the previous week, where a bunch of stuff went wrong that I had to deal with, plus the pandemic (most of the time I feel like I've adapted to it, but every now and then it gets to me), plus current events in the US.

In general, I've been feeling like I need to change up my language learning schedule a bit. I devote one weekday to each language and then Saturdays are French/Spanish and Sundays are Korean/German/Italian. Originally weekends were supposed to just be for extra catch-up, but it hasn't worked out that way. In particular, I've felt like I just don't have enough time in the day on Sundays. It was easier to fit in all three languages at the start of the year, when I was doing less with each language, but I've added things for each language, and I always end up feeling like I'm racing to get everything done. This is probably why it's not recommended to try to learn five languages at once when most of them aren't already at a very high level! There's a part of me that feels like if I just keep thinking about it, eventually I'll figure out a perfect schedule that will allow me to get to everything and leave me time for other things as well, but in reality I don't think that exists.

Currently I'm toying with several ideas: dropping grammar on weekends and just focusing on reading/TV; dropping all grammar except Italian/Korean on weekends (since most of my language study with Italian and Korean consists of grammar work, although this would barely help my Sunday problem, since I'd only be dropping German grammar, which doesn't take a huge amount of time); focusing only on French, Spanish, and German on weekends (since those are my highest-level languages currently and the ones I really want to be at a high level for the rest of my life — Korean and Italian are more just for fun, and I wouldn't be horribly upset if I never got to a high level in either of them); shifting some grammar work from Sundays to Saturdays (I don't think I could fit an entire extra language in on Saturdays, but if I just moved grammar in one of the languages to Saturdays I could probably make it work); or just accepting there is no perfect schedule and trying not to feel like I'm underachieving (in something that's supposed to be a fun hobby and not take over my life) if I don't spend every spare minute on languages. Probably the last option would be the healthiest.

Spanish:
I finished Largo pétalo de mar this week! It was a bit slow at first, and I had some difficulty remembering who all the different characters were, but I enjoyed it, and it was a good challenge for my Spanish level. I plan to read more by Isabel Allende in the future, but not right away. I started Cuando reescribamos la historia which is a YA book by an author I've read before and enjoyed. It's definitely at an easier reading level for me, but I figure it doesn't hurt to alternate between more challenging and easier reading material. Plus, it allows me to work on increasing my reading speed since I'm not having to pause to look up as much unknown vocab.

I've continued to watch a ton of Spanish TV this week, although once I finish rewatching Gran hotel (which should be this week), I'll probably go back to a more normal pace. Since the Super Challenge started, I've watched 4090 minutes of TV/films, so I'm almost at the halfway point of a full challenge after just over a month, which is a bit ridiculous.

I also watched Everybody Knows/Todos lo saben this week. I've been mostly trying to stick to movies I've already seen, but I feel more comfortable going outside my comfort zone in Spanish (and besides, there aren't a ton of Spanish films I've previously watched that are readily available). I've watched several other films by the same director which I've enjoyed, but this is his first film in Spanish, and I've been meaning to watch it for awhile. I liked it, although it's not my favorite of his work. My comprehension was pretty good. I definitely found it more challenging than Spanish TV, but I was able to follow the plot well enough. I did check the Wikipedia page a couple times while I was watching it to make sure I wasn't missing anything and accidentally spoiled myself for a couple plot points that hadn't been revealed yet, although that helped me at least worry less about missing plot details and just focus on comprehension.

German:
I started a new book this week, Animant Crumbs Staubchronik. It's a historical romance (with a bit of fantasy, I think), and I've been enjoying it so far. It has felt a bit easier than Baba Dunjas Letzte Liebe so far (it's not technically YA, I think, but it's kind of right on the line), but I'm still having to look up plenty of vocab, so it's a good level for me.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Cuando reescribamos la historia: chapters 6-39 (done!)
-Spanish newspapers: 3 articles
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: nothing
-Gran hotel: episodes 32-39 (done!)
-La casa de las flores (season 3): episode 7

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 50-56
-French newspapers: 3 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: nothing
-Ma vie de courgette/My Life as a Zucchini: 66 min

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.20-4.21
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (139/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: started chapter 17
-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): started chapter 17
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episode 13
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 3 articles
-Charité: episode 3
-Duolingo: 389 -> 408 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lesson 33
-A-Grammatik: lesson 3.2
-Animant Crumbs Staubchronik: chapters 9-16

Italian
-Duolingo: 111 -> 120 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 1.15-1.16
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 18-19

Took a semi-break this week (although it may not totally seem like it). I had a really stressful week at work, and since I'm still working from home, it's even harder to shift my brain from work to relaxation mode than normal, so I did almost nothing for several days (besides my daily morning tasks of Duolingo, Anki, Naver, and newspaper articles, since those are just routine at this point). I've been feeling more motivated to read recently, though, so I was still able to get a lot of reading done. I've still been avoiding doing much grammar work, although I'm so close to finishing Integrated Korean Beginning 2 that I feel like I should be pushing myself to make it through that at minimum. I also didn't do as much TV-watching for language purposes this week, with the exception of finishing Gran hotel, but I was mostly watching that for pleasure. Plus, it requires almost as little effort to watch as English-language TV shows, so it feels different. This coming week will also probably be pretty rough, so I'm probably going to have to take it easy again. I mostly just want to keep on track for the Super Challenge (even though I'm not officially doing it), but I'm way ahead in all languages for films, and I'm decently ahead in reading, apart from French, where I'm just on track. So it shouldn't be too challenging to not fall behind.

Not a lot else to discuss otherwise. My movie of the week was Ma vie de courgette/My Life As a Zucchini, which I had previously watched a couple years ago. I could follow it because I already knew the plot, but in general I feel like my French listening comprehension has been worse than normal recently. I haven't been doing as much as I'd normally like, though, so I probably just need more input. I also finished the Spanish book I was reading. It was a YA book and it ended up being easy to speed through. Since it was less challenging, I'm going to aim to read something more difficult next, although I haven't decided what just yet.

[brokenrecord]

I always read your log entries with interest, and am always amazed and impressed at how much you get done. How do you split it up in the week with all your different languages? I'm only (!) studying three, and I always find that one gets neglected. I feel like I need a rota or something. Good luck with work this week, hope it's not too rough.

Thank you! I've been following your log as well and enjoy reading it – it's always fun seeing other people studying similar language combinations. Part of the reason I like keeping a log is there are so many weeks (like this one) where I feel like I've gotten nothing done, and then I see it all listed out and realize that's not the case.

I basically devote one day per language during the week and then divide them up on weekends, so: Monday=Spanish, Tuesday=French, Wednesday=Korean, Thursday=German, Friday=Italian, Saturday=French/Spanish, Sunday=German/Korean/Italian. My goal is to do some reading, listening, and grammar for each language on its day (typically 45-60 min of TV, 20-30 pages of reading, and a couple grammar exercises). Then there are my daily tasks, which I do each morning, which include Duolingo, Anki, Memrise, Naver, and newspaper articles (I alternate days between German/French and Spanish/Italian, with nothing Sundays, so I end up with 3 per language per week). I've found that I do really well when I have schedules or routines and don't really have to think about what I'm doing or make decisions every day, so having a really regimented schedule like this works for me. If I didn't have the schedule and just decided I wanted to do some of everything each week but didn't have a plan for when I would do things, I would never get anything accomplished, or I might neglect everything but Spanish (since it requires the least mental effort for me). That was a big reason why I implemented language rotation – I started off my first log in 2018 focusing on Spanish and gradually adding in French, and then I added Korean at the start of 2019, and at that point I realized I needed a stricter schedule or else I wouldn't get to everything. I think a big part of how I'm able to get so much done is that I've been adding things gradually and slowly increasing the time I spend on languages. If I had tried to jump straight from nothing (or Spanish only, which is what I was doing before I started my first log) to everything I do now, I would've burnt out and given up.

I'll also add I'm able to get a lot more accomplished since I'm working from home and don't have to spend time on a commute. And it helps that I don't have kids or other obligations I have to devote time to when I'm not at work, so I can spend as much free time as I want on languages. I also do a lot of multi-tasking – listening to TTMIK while doing the dishes/cooking, watching TV while eating dinner, doing grammar while watching TV in English, etc.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Pedro Páramo: pages 5-29
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: 3 exercises
-La casa de las flores (season 3): episodes 8-11 (done!)

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 57-67
-French newspapers: 2 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 11.33-11.35
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 9

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 4.22-4.23
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (154/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: part of chapter 17
-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 17
-The King: Eternal Monarch (더 킹：영원의 군주): episodes 14-15
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 2 articles
-Charité: episode 4
-Duolingo: 408 -> 429 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lesson 34
-A-Grammatik: lesson 3.3
-Animant Crumbs Staubchronik: chapters 17-47 (done!)
-Isi & Ossi: 113 minutes

Italian
-Duolingo: 120 -> 130 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 1.17
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 20-21


This week thankfully didn't end up being nearly as stressful as I expected, so I got a fair amount done, although I felt my attention shifting elsewhere at the end of the week. I definitely feel like since the pandemic started, I've been having a hard time staying focused on anything for an extended period of time — my attention has kind of been bouncing around from thing to thing.


German:
I got really sucked into Animant Crumbs Staubchronik this week and ended up finishing it, which I wasn't planning. It was fairly long, too, so not a small task. Even though I got very sucked in, I don't know that I'd strongly recommend it (and I had a few issues with how it ended), but I think it ended up being good for language-learning purposes. Part of my issue with the plot is it started feeling very repetitive (for the story it was telling, it really didn't need to be as long as it was), but the plus side of that was I got a ton of repeated exposure to the same vocab, so by the time I finished it, I really felt like my vocab had improved and words that had been shaky in my memory before had solidified. I even noticed when I was watching an episode of Charité after finishing the book that I felt like my comprehension had improved compared to just a week before since I wasn't struggling quite as much with the vocab.

I also watched Isi & Ossi this week, which is a romantic comedy on Netflix. I had wanted to stick to films I had previously seen for French and German, but there just weren't enough options for German films I had previously watched, so I decided to go for this instead. It wasn't a movie I expected to be particularly amazing so I wasn't too worried about missing details, and I also figured the plot would be straightforward enough to not get too lost. The movie was just fine, but I think it was a good choice. My comprehension was decent enough to follow the plot, but I definitely missed a fair amount of dialogue. On the plus side, my library is opening back up partially to allow for picking up requests this week, so the available films I'll have to choose from should be expanding.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Pedro Páramo: pages 30-37
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: nothiing
-Alta mar (season 3): episodes 1-2

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapters 68-72
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 10

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 4.24
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 0/7 days (163/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: nothing
-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): episode 16
-Today's Korean by Naver: 0/7 days

German
-German newspapers: nothing
-Charité: episode 5
-Duolingo: 562 -> 583 crowns (7/7 days)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
-A-Grammatik: nothing
-Glennkill: Ein Schafskrimi: started chapter 1

Italian
-Duolingo: 141 -> 142 crowns (4/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing

So I took a bit of a break for the past two months! I needed a break, but I didn't plan on it lasting quite this long. I really have no sense of time these days. I kept thinking each week maybe I would get back to things, and then the week would pass me by and I'd done nothing, and… well here I am, two months later. I did keep up Duolingo German and Anki. The above is just what I've done the past week, when I finally realized my break had lasted long enough and it was time to ease into things again. I still don't feel ready to go full force with language-learning yet, so I'm planning on keeping things pretty light for awhile. I'm planning on just doing one day for each language, where I do at least one thing each day (focused on TV-watching for the most part, since I feel more up to that than reading/grammar), and trying to keep my weekends free. Eventually I'll get in the mood to do more and get back to my normal schedule, but right now this is about all I can manage without it feeling like too much of a chore.

Spanish:
I finished the last Spanish show I was watching before my break, so I started the third season of Alta mar. It's still not a show I'd call great, but I enjoy it a lot. Whenever I take a long break, I worry about it taking me time to get back to my previous level, but I really don't have that issue with Spanish. I didn't feel like I had any greater difficulty with comprehension than I normally do.

Korean:
I finally managed to finish The King: Eternal Monarch. There was enough I liked about it to keep me watching the show, but enough that I disliked or felt disinterested in that I didn't rush to finish it. I'm considering taking a break from kdramas for a little bit. They're helpful at least in terms of motivation when I'm enjoying a show, but shows that are just so-so end up feeling like a bit of a drag to get through. I really just need to be better about jumping around until I find one I like, which I know I've said before, but for whatever reason I have a hard time committing to that. Once I start something, I want to finish it, even if I'm not enjoying it. I do think focusing on grammar would be more beneficial for me with Korean than focusing on kdramas. There was one kdrama on Netflix I had wanted to check out after I finished The King: Eternal Monarch, though, so maybe I'll check that out, and if I'm not into it, I'll take a break from kdramas for a little while.

German:
I started a new book, Glennkill: Ein Schafskrimi, this week. It's a crime novel where the protagonists are sheep, which sounds silly (and it is) but it was the kind of thing I was in the mood for. I haven't gotten very far yet, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Since I kept up with Duolingo during my break, I managed to make a good amount of progress on my tree, and I'm actually very close to finishing it. It seems a bit shorter than either the French or Spanish trees, which helps. I should actually finish it this week. Then I'll only have the Italian tree left to get through on Duolingo!

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Pedro Páramo: pages 38-42
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: nothing
-Alta mar (season 3): episodes 3-4

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapter 73
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 11
-Persepolis: 1h35

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: nothing
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 5/7 days (163/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: part of chapter 17
-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
-Mystic Pop-Up Bar (쌍갑포차): episodes 1-2
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: nothing
-Charité: episode 6
-Duolingo: 583 -> 608 crowns (7/7 days) (done!)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
-A-Grammatik: nothing
-Glennkill: Ein Schafskrimi: part of chapter 1

Italian
-Duolingo: 142 -> 143 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: page 22

Not much to talk about this week, but I don't want to get in the habit of not updating every week because updating helps motivate me more to stick with things. I started a new kdrama this week which I'm enjoying enough to continue with. I also watched Persepolis in French this week. I had previously watched it, but long enough ago that I can't even remember when it was (at least a decade ago). My comprehension of it and Dix pour cent felt improved vs. last week, just coming back from my break, where I struggled more. I also finished the first season of Charité this week. There's a second season, but it's set 50 years later with different characters, so I may take a break and watch the third season of Dark, before I get to it. In general the plot of Charité is easier to follow than Dark, but since it's set in a hospital, there's a fair amount of medical dialogue that makes it more challenging to understand. Finally, the biggest thing I accomplished this week is finishing the Duolingo German tree! So now I'm only left with the Italian Duolingo tree (although whenever I finish that, I'll probably just dabble with random languages on Duolingo for fun). This week should be pretty similar to last week, with a focus on TV-watching, but I do feel like I should at least add in newspaper articles or something since the only languages I do anything with daily are Korean and Italian now, and German especially could do with more attention than just one day devoted to it per week.

[brokenrecord]

Spanish
-Pedro Páramo: pages 43-48
-Spanish newspapers: 2 articles
-Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive: nothing
-Alta mar (season 3): episodes 5-6 (done!)

French
-Ensemble, c'est tout: chapter 74
-French newspapers: 2 articles
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-Call My Agent/Dix pour cent: episode 12

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 4.26
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 4 Memrise: 7/7 days (163/163 items)
-Integrated Korean Beginning 2: nothing
-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
-Mystic Pop-Up Bar (쌍갑포차): episodes 3-4
-Today's Korean by Naver: 7/7 days

German
-German newspapers: 2 articles
-Dark (Season 3): episode 1
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
-A-Grammatik: nothing
-Glennkill: Ein Schafskrimi: finished chapter 1
-Lola rennt/Run Lola Run: 1h21

Italian
-Italian newspapers: 2 articles
-Duolingo: 143 -> 147 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Nuova Grammatica Pratica Della Lingua Italiana: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing

Updating a day late since I've been enjoying the three-day weekend we have here in the U.S. Still not a lot to discuss, just continuing at a reduced pace. I did have a couple random urges to do a little bit more this week, return to grammar, that kind of thing, but I never found the time to do so. Maybe this week!