AroAro's log (languages, books, certificates)

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AroAro
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Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Thu Feb 16, 2023 2:48 pm

SCHIMBĂRILE PETRECUTE ÎN POLONIA ÎN ULTIMII 20 DE ANI CONSTITUIE (SAU NU) UN SUCCES ECONOMIC ȘI SOCIAL?
(they ask about Poland because it's an essay topic taken from University of Warsaw certification center)

Este firește că lumea schimbă foarte repede și acest fapt este bine văzut mai ales în Europa Centrală ca urmare a căderei comunismului. Totuși, nu toate aceste schimbări sunt pozitive și există o parte a populației care le respinge. Eu consider însă că schimbările sunt mai mult pozitive decât negative și aș vrea să o demonstrez.
În primul rând, trebuie să ne uităm la viața oamenilor sub regim comunist care s-a prăbușit numai în 1989. Acest regim favoriza întotdeauna stagnația și nu intenționa ca nivelul economic al vieții se ridice. Totul era planificat și nimeni nu avea nevoie să se implice mai mult decât alții. În schimb, după căderea comunismului, oameni au fost nevoiți să arăte creativitatea și angajamentul lor personal în locurile de muncă, ceea ce este o schimbare puternică. Prin urmare, Polonia a atras multe investiții străine și mulți oameni și-au găsit o slujbă pe care nu ar fi putut s-o găsească niciodată pe vremea comunismului.
În al doilea rând, Polonia a intrat în mai multe organizații internaționale, precum Uniunea Europană sau Nato, ceea ce a asigurat stabilitatea pe plan internațional. Granițele s-au deschis și oameni pot să călătorească cu ușurință. De sigur, multe persoane au părăsit țara lor pentru că nu își găseau o slujbă. Acest val de emigrație este o mare problemă și sunt convins că țata a pierdut prea multe persoane bine educate, care ar fi putut contribui la dezvoltarea ei.
Cu toate acestea, eu sunt de părere că schimbările petrecute constituie un succes economic și social. Țara noastră s-a dezvoltat în mod rapid, s-a modernizat și s-a stabilizat. Chiar dacă nu toți au putut să profiteze pe deplin din aceste schimbări, ei au mai multe opțiuni de a găsi fericirea decât acum 20 de ani.
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Feb 17, 2023 12:13 pm

I think my initial enthusiasm diminished somewhat in regards to the Romanian certificate. I did some sample tests from previous years and usually got around 85-87% of correct answers. However, these tests are in an old format, the new tests look so much different. In the new format, for reading section for example, you have to rewrite the sentences keeping their original sense. Ok, so do they test writing skills in the reading section? I don’t get it. And there is no key answer for the new tests of course, because I can imagine that each student can give a different but equally correct answer. So all in all, I thought I had 80% of chances to pass the exam whereas now I would say it’s closer to 50%. The new format is just less transparent concerning the technique to be applied in order to pass it.

Then there is a writing part – in both formats, there is usually a mail to be written (request for information or help) and an essay. In the old format, you get such topics as “Mobile phones in our lives” – perfectly in line with First Certificate in English (B2) topics for written part. But in the new format, the essay topics are like “Is it easier to understand history standing close by or from a distant perspective?”. That’s an interesting question but one that I would rather expect to encounter in an C1 or even C2 exam and not B2! Especially if you have to write only 180 words, it’s not that many to be honest. So I’m not feeling overly confident before the exam.

Other than that, even if I don’t pass the exam, I think it was a good idea to focus solely on one language (and by the way, I can indulge freely in “silly” reality shows in Romanian). I had tried to squeeze in my daily routine both Bulgarian and Hebrew, plus some YT videos and online articles in my maintenance languages, and felt a little bit under pressure to do it all in one day - every day - and I guess I needed a break. However, after the exam (the date hasn’t been announced yet), I will come back to this routine, hopefully with new energy and enthusiasm.

I finished reading “Nomada” (the best book I've ever read in Romanian), and now I’m reading a Romanian translation of Jo Nesbo’s “The Bat” (“Liliacul”).
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Feb 24, 2023 9:11 am

The date of the exam has finally been announced and it will take place in the last week of March, so I still have some time to prepare. The only thing is that I can’t bring myself to do any more sample tests and I stopped doing them :) I know, it’s not the best way to prepare for an exam but well, I did all the B2 sample tests that I could find (and my average score was 85%) so I guess doing sample tests for other levels is useless at this point. And truth be told, I hate the idea of doing any more sample tests, I’m fed up with them, so I should better concentrate on more pleasurable activities, like:

Reading – still reading Jo Nesbo’s “Liliacul” but I also read online articles – not only about current events, but also about health, history and so on, just to familiarize myself with other types of articles.

Listening – I discovered some interesting travel channels in Romanian on YT, so that’s what I’ve been primarily listening to.

Talking - I had my first ever iTalki lesson which feels like a big milestone in my language learning journey. In this first lesson, we went through a sample test (new format) and the tutor said the test is extremely difficult and it’s not really aimed at B2 students. She helped me to rewrite the sentences (in one case, I wrote the opposite of what was expected so that’s good to get corrections). She also said that if the test is so difficult, it means the examinators probably won’t pay attention to every single error as long as the meaning of the original phrase is kept and clearly rendered in my rewritten sentences. We’ll continue working on the new tests next week and will do the conversation part of the exam as well.

I’ve also come back to Bulgarian and Hebrew, doing just a little bit of both.
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Mar 03, 2023 9:10 am

Romanian - I had another iTalki lesson and it was ok, the tutor drew my attention to fossilized errors (such as saying “oameni care” instead of “oamenii care”, or use of “ii” instead of “le” for plural dative pronoun). She also gave me some tips regarding the exam – the most important thing is to keep on talking until the examinator asks another question or starts talking to another candidate (the oral exam takes place in pairs). And that’s my problem because I don’t really talk much, even in my native language lol, apart from the strict minimum that needs to be said. I always marvel at people who can hold long monologues in a language (or rather prattle) – it’s hard to change one’s personality but I guess I’ll have to memorize some “ready to go” phrases in case there would be a danger of silence falling. Anyway, on the bright side of things, I’m proud to use “possessive dative” when speaking Romanian which is a typical feature of Balkan languages, and the tutor says she understands everything I say so my pronunciation is pretty good (not that Romanian pronunciation is super tricky but still it’s nice to hear such comments).

Bulgarian – I’m going through “Intensive Bulgarian vol.2”, I’m at the lesson 22 out of 30 (both volumes combined). The grammar explanations are quite complicated and simply fly over my head – I try to analyze example phrases to detect the patterns though. The book is probably aimed at people who want to get a degree in Slavic linguistics. The first volume was more accessible to be honest.

Hebrew – I did chapters 13 and 14 from FSI Hebrew. And now, I’ll work with “L’Hébreu au présent". It starts with basics but the lessons quickly reach “pre-intermediate” level, and that’s exactly what I need right now.
Clozemaster#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 2249, mastered 1833 out of 19999 sentences

Reading – finished reading “Liliacul” (I think I will never become a fan of crime novels). Now, I’m reading a biography of Alfred Hitchcock in Romanian, “The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock” / “Cele douăsprezece vieți ale lui Alfred Hitchcock”.
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby Caromarlyse » Fri Mar 03, 2023 1:29 pm

AroAro wrote:She also gave me some tips regarding the exam – the most important thing is to keep on talking until the examinator asks another question or starts talking to another candidate (the oral exam takes place in pairs). And that’s my problem because I don’t really talk much, even in my native language lol, apart from the strict minimum that needs to be said. I always marvel at people who can hold long monologues in a language (or rather prattle) – it’s hard to change one’s personality but I guess I’ll have to memorize some “ready to go” phrases in case there would be a danger of silence falling.


That sounds like a good tip from your tutor - something that you can now prepare for and thus avoid being judged unfairly for something that, as you say, is much more of a personality trait than a language issue. I have exactly the same problem. I also like to think before speaking, rather than just coming out with whatever rubbish first springs to mind, and this is also often simply equated with poor language ability. It can be very annoying!
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Mar 10, 2023 9:28 am

Exactly, I need to overcome my “introvertism” which adds additional pressure on the day of the exam, although I’m aware I need to say something (or even more) so that the examiners can assess my language level.

Romanian – I didn’t book any online lesson this week, I was very busy at work (including providing support for tasks that I performed for the last time in 2016 which is crazy but it turned out I still remember a lot). I continue with listening and expanding my vocabulary. I also contacted Institutul Limbii Romane regarding the structure of the reading part because I would like to know what to expect at the end of the day. They replied that “exercises can take various forms. For example, filling in the blanks, rephrasing/reordering statements according to the prompts, identifying/confirming the correct forms of words/phrases/statements.” So I still don’t know what to expect but at least there is a glimmer of hope that the exam will not rely on rephrasing only :)

Bulgarian – lesson 26 from “Intensive Bulgarian vol.2”

Hebrew – I’m at the lesson 10 from “L’Hébreu au présent"
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 2284, mastered 1873 out of 19999 sentences

Reading
that biography of Alfred Hitchcock, very good so far.
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User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1792

Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Mar 17, 2023 11:42 am

This week was even worse than the previous one. My kids got sick and I had to stay with them at home, as a result I didn’t have much time for language learning… This is not how things were supposed to look like one or two weeks before the exam! Actually, I’m wondering what I was thinking when I decided to sign up for the exam because as for now, I’m not confident at all regarding its positive outcome. I think that I’ve burned out on Romanian in general – initially, I thought the exam was going to take place at the beginning of March but it’s set to be 3 weeks later. Seems like an eternity.

All in all, I’m a little bit angry because:
- if I signed up for a B2 exam, I’d like to be tested at B2 level and it seems it’s not going to be the case, the level is much higher from what I can see (and I’m quite familiar with CEFR requirements)
- I’d like to know at least what the structure of the exam will be, whereas in fact I should be ready to expect anything (exams for major languages are much more predictable in this regard, and knowing beforehand what kind of tasks are to be expected removes a lot of stress on the day of the exam)
- online exam seems like a great idea but in reality, the responsibility for any technical issues (such as slow Internet connection or bad sound quality) is pushed on the candidates and it adds to the stress.

On a positive note, I booked my tickets to Bucharest in June, it’s just a 4 days’ trip but maybe this “reward” will ramp up my motivation before the exam…

(And on a side note, I wonder what the hell I did with my free time when I didn’t have kids - I could have learned multiple languages or got several exam certificates :) Well, sure, I put all the effort on other things that looked like a priority back then, but looking at things from a perspective, they don’t seem so important now).


Anyway, I managed to have two iTalki lessons – one with the previous tutor (we checked one of my essays in Romanian) and conversation practice with another tutor. She was honest about the fact that she doesn’t have experience with language exams but the lesson I had with her was exactly what I needed and wanted. She asked me several questions on a variety of topics (travel, childhood and… teleportation) and I had to give her my opinion and justify it. That was fun! I really had to activate my vocab to express myself so that was really worth it.

Regarding Bulgarian, I finished that textbook and I’m putting Bulgarian on hold, at least till the end of the month. For Hebrew, I’m going slowly through “L’Hébreu au present”.
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 2324, mastered 1927 out of 19999 sentences
Still reading that biography of Alfred Hitchcock.
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Mar 24, 2023 7:57 am

I've had 3 Italki lessons with that new Romanian tutor and will book 2 more next week. She is wonderful, she asks me questions and I’m not afraid of talking and making mistakes – and I make a lot of mistakes... I had a bad day on Wednesday, I struggled to recall some simple words. We’re also working on synonyms, and it just makes me realize there is still a lot of vocabulary to be learned… But it’s too late, the exam is set for next Thursday. The exam is composed of 3 parts – reading/grammar competences, writing, listening understanding/oral expression. It’s a pity that listening is not a separate part, I’m good at listening tests so I could get some extra points here :) Quite a lot of candidates signed up for the exam, and seeing my candidate code among other 30 candidates for B2 level alone was really stressful, can’t really explain why. I can’t stop thinking if other candidates know at least what to expect, maybe they followed some preparatory courses in one of those “Romanian Institutes” and will nail it, instead of self-studying like me.

What will be will be, at least I have a clear conscience about it because I know I’ve done everything I could to prepare for the exam (including writing more than 10 essays in the last couple of days). Ei bine, fie ce-o fi!

I’m at the lesson 20 of “L’Hébreu au present”. It’s a good book even though it would not be suitable for complete beginners because grammar explanations are quite succinct, but it contains a lot of exercises unlike most Hebrew coursebooks so that’s a good thing.
Clozemaster #Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 2354, mastered 1985 out of 19999 sentences

I finished reading Hitchcock’s biography (very interesting in that it’s not really linear and his life is rather shown from 12 different angles, hence the title “12 lives”). I’ve come back to “Nirgendwo in Afrika”.
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AroAro
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Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:10 am

The Romanian exam took place yesterday and it was really tiring. The exam started with 10 minutes’ delay because some people had issues with connection or wanted to ask some additional questions. The delay was not that long and it was easily predictable but one of the examiners (a guy, there were also two ladies) got a little bit angry because apparently not everyone understood his instructions in Romanian, some people replied happily in Italian so in the end he also repeated each phrase in both Romanian and Italian. He “admonished” us that we should understand Romanian if we signed up for B2 level exam, and that was quite awkward. Most of the candidates were either Italians or people with Romanian descent living in Italy or Greece. Guessing by the names that I appeared in Zoom, there were only 2 or 3 candidates that didn’t belong to one of those two groups (including me of course).

First, we had “reading and grammar comprehension”, fortunately it was not so bad as I had expected. The first task was a true/false exercise, then task 2 – transforming five phrases from passive into active voice and task 3 – finishing 10 phrases (writing whatever we wanted) so that they would be grammatically correct. That one was a bit puzzling because I didn’t know if they will score the length of replies also or only their correctness. There was not much time left to think about fancy words and structures though.

Then, the writing part – that one was really hard because we had only 60 minutes for two tasks. First, writing a report about statistics attached that showed how Romanians spend their free time. I didn’t see it coming because there never had been a report with statistics in graphic form in this exam, so I had to come up quickly with some ideas but in the end, I think I did well on that one. Less so for the second task – writing an essay (160-180 words) about young people who drive a car too quickly. In fact, I think I wrote a very good essay, the only problem is that I exceeded the number of required words by 20% :? so I’m not sure how they will penalize me for that. I just didn’t have enough time to plan well this essay and decided to include “causes”, “consequences” and “remediations” as required in the instruction for that part, even though my essay turned out to be way too long. Now when I think of it, I should have just cut out 2 or 3 phrases at random but the time was running so quickly! They should’ve given us 90 minutes for writing, in all honesty.

4 hours later, I took the listening and oral part and it was even more stressful because I couldn’t open the audio file they shared with us for the listening part via Zoom. That brought me out in a cold sweat but luckily the file started playing by itself a few moments later. The listening part was about different museums in Romania and it was quite hard sometimes to realize which museum they were talking about, all their names blurred into one in my mind. The audio was a 2 minutes long real-life excerpt from a radio program, not a prefabricated text composed specially for the exam purpose. And we had only 10 minutes for that part. Then, once the listening part was over, I was asked to talk about advantages and disadvantages of travelling by plane, and that took me by surprise because I didn’t have any time to prepare myself, so I started talking trying to structure somehow my expose. Luckily, while preparing for the exam, I prepared around 40 prompts for speaking part that I found online for FCE exam, and that really paid off at that moment (the examiner said he really liked what I said and he appreciated the fact that I cleverly structured my expose, so that was nice 8-) ). I’m pretty sure for most exams in other languages, you get at least 5-10 minutes to prepare an expose, but not during a Romanian one! Then I was asked what the most important event in the history of humanity was, so I chose WW2 because it’s rather easy to talk about it and its consequences.

And the other candidate was an Italian girl but sadly, she barely spoke any Romanian, and even the examiner said she mixes Italian with Romanian and he hopes she did better in the writing parts. Actually, after each part of the oral exam, we were given feedback about our performance, I think such comments are not allowed in other language exams. They told me for example that I had issues with articles after the preposition “cu” when talking about means of transport, and yes, that’s very much true. Anyway, I don’t want to appear boastful, but the examiners asked if I studied in Cracow or Poznan, two Polish cities where you can get a master’s degree in Romanian language, or if I had any connections with those universities. They were surprised I’d been learning Romanian by myself. The oral part took 30 minutes in total, 10 minutes for listening and 20 minutes for speaking, and I must confess I was the one who spoke most of the time. Not that I intentionally monopolized the time to the detriment of the Italian girl, but it was hard for the examiners to have a meaningful conversation with her (even though they tried to rescue her by asking some simple questions). From what I understood, she started learning Romanian a few weeks before. I think I should get a good score from that part.

All in all, the exam didn’t differ that much from other language exams, except for a few details, however the time pressure was incomparably higher. I was exhausted.

The examiners said the results will be announced next week, so relatively quickly.
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AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
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AroAro’s log – preparing for DALF C1 in June 2023

Postby AroAro » Mon Apr 03, 2023 10:51 am

I can get ready for my next language exam – I’m going to take DALF C1 in June. I feel rather positive about that one because my French is quite good, unless I’m proven wrong in June of course…

The resources I’m going to use:
-Le DALF 100% Réussite
-Réussir le DALF C1 et C2
-DALF C1 Tests complets avec corrigés

-3 books by Stephane Wattier (Production Ecrite DALF C1, Production Orale DALF C1, Les mots pour convaincre) – I didn’t intend to buy them but succumbed to the temptation. They come in a small format so they don’t require much space anyway and actually, they seem to be full of interesting tips
-French magazines (L’Express, Ca m’intéresse, L’OBS)
-French YT channels (French School TV, Arte, Géopolitis among many others) and radio stations

There’s such a difference between preparing for an exam in a niche language, like Romanian, and an exam in French, the number of resources is mind-blowing in comparison.

However, I don’t want to neglect my other languages, so my plan is to keep up with my maintenance languages once a week, on Mondays for example (reading online articles, watching stuff on YT), whereas on Fridays, I’d like to revisit my Bulgarian materials to consolidate my knowledge, and… start Assimil Occitan. My intention is to dabble in Occitan and just be able to understand spoken and written Occitan. Fortunately, there is no Occitan exam certificate that I know of, so no pressure is linked to learning this language :) I do hope that that system will help me avoid burnout that I experienced while preparing for the Romanian certificate, when I did something in Romanian every single day.

Regarding Hebrew, I’m putting it on hold till the end of the year. I finished “L’Hébreu au présent" but I will continue doing my daily share of Clozemaster. I will probably try to have a look at “Hebrew Time - Intermediate Hebrew Podcast” but will see if I can actually squeeze it somehow in my daily routine but again, no pressure, I don’t want to be too harsh to myself.
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