Lou's language log (French, Japanese)

[handa]

Remade: December 3rd, 2020

Hello, I'm Lou, a Swedish part-time student in her early twenties. I'm doing the humanities program at Komvux with a focus on language. Once the next year rolls around I'll be studying full-time, with the first courses of the year being French 4 and Japanese 2, which I'm really looking forward to.

My native language is Swedish. I also speak English but not much else. However, I've been studying French since 2014, Korean since 2015 and Japanese since about 2017. My language studies have been all over the place and I've never managed to be consistent for longer than a few months at a time. Albanian is my heritage language but my motivation to learn it wavers quite a bit.

Me as a learner:
I find myself drawn to grammar and grammar heavy approaches, even though that might be to my detriment. Any sort of social situation, both online and in real life, causes me a lot of anxiety so I don't get many oppurtunities to practice anything I learn. I'm probably not going to be writing in any languages other than English or Swedish because I don't have much confidence in my abilities. I've found that I do better with exercise-heavy textbooks and that I require more structure in the learning material that I use compared to a lot of members on this forum. I've tried extensive reading and the like and it's a fast way to make my confidence as well as my enthusiasm plummet. However, I do need to find ways to work on my listening comprehension as that's always lagging behind.

[handa]

A bit embarrassed to show my face again after making such an enthusiastic log introduction and then immediately disappearing again. Everything kind of went downhill after I made that post, both studies-wise and mental health-wise. I'm a couple of weeks away from finishing my current courses (philosophy and religious studies? is not a fun combination when you can barely manage to study ), after which Christmas break awaits. After that, instead of studying unrelated things I'll be studying French and Japanese so that'll be fun.

For the last couple of weeks I've been using Duolingo to get some reviewing done. I don't have the energy for any real "sit-down-and-study" type of thing and while I'm not the biggest fan of Duolingo since I find it a bit annoying to use (and some recent changes to the app made it even worse), it's at least something. Right now I'm mostly testing out of levels. I get a little bit of a confidence boost so that's why I keep going! I've been picking at the Latin course too, since I will also be taking Latin sometime next year. The grammar explanations don't show up on the app though which is dumb. It's interesting seeing similarities (the verb endings!) between it and French.

Once I'm done with my current courses I hope I'll be able to sit down to study and prepare more seriously for French and Japanese.

[Xenops]

Welcome back! Regarding "annoying Duolingo changes", this thread might be of help: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/42953943?comment_id=42953989

[handa]

Wanted to note down my Duolingo crowns so far, so that I can keep track of the speed with which I go through the trees:
French tree: 822 crowns
Japanese tree: 138 crowns

Not really learning anything new but the reviewing is giving me practice and helping me cementing the basic grammar. I went for a long time feeling as if I didn't have a solid grasp of even the most basic of things, but through all of the exercises in my textbooks and now a bit with Duolingo, it feels like I'm finally reaching that point. The correct answers come quickly to my mind and the only mistakes I make is the occasional typo.

The textbook for my Japanese course, Japanese for Busy People I, arrived today! I've already worked through half of it during my first Japanese course and a few more chapters after it with a downloaded e-book (the kana version hasn't been available in Swedish bookstores since before this summer and I dislike how the romanized version is formated). But I think that I will redo those chapters as a warm-up and exercise in order to prepare for this course and to perhaps get a head start.

I'm on the home stretch of my non-language-related courses now so very soon I'll be able to focus my energy on language studies.

[handa]

I'm finally done with my courses! So happy to be past that now.

French:
Duolingo: 822 -> 863 crowns
My current textbook in French is The Ultimate French Review and Practice. I finished the chapter about reflexive verbs and I'm almost done with the chapter about the future tense and conditional mood. There's a lot of exercises for most of the grammar details that the book goes over and while it's not the most exciting thing, I feel that they are really helping me and that for me is more fun than anything else. Right now I'm currently pondering over how far I can get through this textbook before my courses start in exactly 25 days from now. I'm able to see what the entirety of my French course right now and it's not as if I'm unprepared for it, but I'm still nervous. I have slight impostor syndrome regarding my grade in the previous French course. A part of me think it'd be better if I used this time to work on my listening comprehension which is also lagging behind but I'm unsure of how to go about it. I've been looking at podcasts and such but I get a bit overwhelmed by the amount of them.

Japanese:
Duolingo: 138 -> 159 crowns
I'm working with Japanese for Busy People I, which is also the book I'll be working with during my Japanese course next year. And once again, a lot of exercises which means I enjoy it! I mentioned earlier that I was going to go through what I've already done, as a review in preparation for the course. Now I have the accompanying CD so I can also practice my listening comprehension more and get more out of it.

[handa]

I did the Dialang test for French. My results were the following:
Listening: B1
Writing: B1
Reading: C1
Structures: B1
Vocabulary: B2

I also noted which areas in each category I seemed to get the most wrong answers. Because I had chosen to have the instructions in Swedish, I don't know what they're called in English but I thought I'd mention them anyway. For listening: attention to details (think I wrote it down wrong, detaljlystring?), writing: korrekthet, structures: blandad formlära, vocabulary: ordbildning.

The listening part was really difficult. Feels like I guessed too much for the result to be reliable.

[handa]

I've been feeling restless the past week in regards to my language learning. I think part of it has been mental health-related (couldn't pick up my medicine) but I'm getting these feelings of not doing enough and that's discouraging. The Dialang results were was about what I could have hoped for but it doesn't feel good enough, it's making me feel distressed. I feel so mediocre. I'd like to have more to show for the years I've spent on French.

French:
I recently got a Netflix-subscription and I've watched a couple of movies dubbed in French (Studio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle and Whisper of the Heart, two favourite movies of mine). I don't know how to judge how much I actually understand though. Words, phrases, bits and pieces here and there. The longer sentences go over my head. I've been looking at podcasts but there's a lot of resistance from within me towards listening to podcasts for some reason. I really don't think it's for me but the listening comprehension-part of French is a problem and podcasts seem to be a common way to deal with it, so I don't know what to do really. I'm wondering if it's okay to watch a movie or two in French every week; will that improve my listening comprehension? The B1 result in listening feels like such a stretch and it's troubling. I keep wondering how I did this with English but I can't remember much of that time at all. My comprehension of English has been "fluent" since I was about ten or eleven.

Japanese:
I finished the 19th lesson of JFBPI tonight, though I still have to enter the vocabulary into my Anki deck. There are six lessons left and I'd like to both finish those AND review as many of the earlier chapters as possible before my course starts on January 11th. I don't actually need to do it since the course covers the second half of the book but still...

I read through golyplot's log in this forum and got interested in trying out Wanikani which is what I've done. I started on 23rd December and I reached level 3 tonight. I'm not sure if I'll pay for a subscription though. I'm waiting to see if there'll be a discount for the yearly subscription, since I have a slight inkling that it will...

Duolingo is starting to bore me, the progress feels too slow. Too many lessons per level, which also feels too slow and I keep making stupid typos which keeps me from jumping to the next level after two perfect lessons.

I'm really sorry for the amount of complaining in this post but I felt a need to write. I hope that these feelings will go away soon. They're also keeping me awake at night and it's almost five o'clock in the morning at the time of writing this.

[golyplot]

Watching movies in French will improve your listening comprehension eventually, but I'd recommend trying to stack the odds in your favor by focusing on easier material first. In particular, this means watching TV series rather than movies, since the long and repetitive nature of TV gives you an opportunity to become familiar with the plot and characters and voices and so on. Additionally, I'd recommend focusing on cartoons, since I think they're usually easier to understand. Watching the French dubs of things you've already seen before can also help with comprehension.


By the way, if you're looking for recommendations, I really liked Wakfu and Miraculous Ladybug on Netflix. I also watched Lolirock, which isn't very good, but it's a decent way to practice French while you put off watching the shows you actually care about.

[DaveAgain]

French:
I recently got a Netflix-subscription and I've watched a couple of movies dubbed in French (Studio Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle and Whisper of the Heart, two favourite movies of mine). I don't know how to judge how much I actually understand though. Words, phrases, bits and pieces here and there. The longer sentences go over my head. I've been looking at podcasts but there's a lot of resistance from within me towards listening to podcasts for some reason. I really don't think it's for me but the listening comprehension-part of French is a problem and podcasts seem to be a common way to deal with it, so I don't know what to do really.

I think video is better than podcasts for improving listening, as you have visual clues as to what's being said. In your case you're also watching films you're already familiar with too, which should again help with understanding. That said a radio drama of Jane Eyre was one of the first things I remember listening to and understanding.

I'm wondering if it's okay to watch a movie or two in French every week; will that improve my listening comprehension? The B1 result in listening feels like such a stretch and it's troubling. I keep wondering how I did this with English but I can't remember much of that time at all. My comprehension of English has been "fluent" since I was about ten or eleven.

Two specific exercises that are are supposed to help improve listening comprehension are shadowing, and transcription, which you can do with your films.

TV5mondeplus.com would be another video-with-subtitles option.

[Xenops]

I've been feeling restless the past week in regards to my language learning. I think part of it has been mental health-related (couldn't pick up my medicine) but I'm getting these feelings of not doing enough and that's discouraging. The Dialang results were was about what I could have hoped for but it doesn't feel good enough, it's making me feel distressed. I feel so mediocre. I'd like to have more to show for the years I've spent on French.

Oh no, I hope you got your medicine! Mental health is tough--I've struggled for years. One thing I've realized is that is that it's not healthy to compare yourself to others. Everybody is different, everybody has different abilities and struggles, everybody learns differently. Rather than focusing on what you can't do, focus on your accomplishments: reaching B-levels in French is an achievement! It's not an easy language. I studied Spanish in high school, and I'm still confused about how French does things--and, of course, the speaking and listening is hard too! So don't be hard on yourself.

Japanese:
I finished the 19th lesson of JFBPI tonight, though I still have to enter the vocabulary into my Anki deck. There are six lessons left and I'd like to both finish those AND review as many of the earlier chapters as possible before my course starts on January 11th. I don't actually need to do it since the course covers the second half of the book but still...

I read through golyplot's log in this forum and got interested in trying out Wanikani which is what I've done. I started on 23rd December and I reached level 3 tonight. I'm not sure if I'll pay for a subscription though. I'm waiting to see if there'll be a discount for the yearly subscription, since I have a slight inkling that it will...

I recommend this book, actually: Let's Learn Kanji It breaks down kanji by radicals, which you can think of as "letters", or atoms of kanji. I'm finding this much easier to learn than memorizing 20+ stroke characters.

Duolingo is starting to bore me, the progress feels too slow. Too many lessons per level, which also feels too slow and I keep making stupid typos which keeps me from jumping to the next level after two perfect lessons.

I managed to maintain a 210-day streak (with numerous streak freezes), and I realized I just need a break. For me, I think I need to change up learning methods every so often, or I get bored as well.