Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Sep 05, 2021 3:36 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: chapters 17-20
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: 2.01-2.04
-¿Quién mató a Sara?: episode 18 (no subs) (done!)
-La casa de papel (season 5): episode 1 (no subs)
-Duolingo: 864 -> 882 crowns (7/7 days)
Total: 3.3 hours

French
-Changer l'eau des fleurs: chapters 62-73
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 14.03-14.05
-Lupin: episode 8 (1x, w/ FR subs), episode 9 (1x, w/o FR subs)
Total: 2.5 hours

German
-Das Mädchen am Strand: chapters 22-25
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): episode 2 (1x, w/ DE subs), episode 3 (1x, w/o DE subs)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lesson 55
Total: 2.2 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 6.02
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 7/7 days (15/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: units 4.05-4.07
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: 1 story
-Crash Landing on You: episodes 1-16 (1x, simultaneous EN & KO subs)
-Intensive study of Crash Landing on You Scenes: episodes 1-13 (79 scenes)
Total: 33.8 hours including kdrama, 11.3 hours without (except for intensive study)

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 251 -> 255 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 4.01-4.03
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 71-77
Total: 1.3 hours

Spanish:
Finally finished ¿Quién mató a Sara?. I'm not sure if there will be more seasons, but I don't have plans to continue with it. Luckily I finished it with perfect timing to start watching the new episodes of La casa de papel that were just released on Netflix. I think my enjoyment of the show has diminished from the first couple seasons, but it's still fun and engaging to watch. My comprehension of the first episode didn't seem too bad to me at first, but then I rewatched a couple scenes with Spanish subs, and I definitely missed some key details, so I may continue to rewatch certain scenes with subtitles just to make sure I'm following everything. One positive thing is that my Spanish production rust with is definitely wearing off, as I expected it would. I'll still sometimes make mistakes with Duolingo and use Italian if I start typing without thinking, but I usually catch myself, and those errors have become increasingly less frequent.

Korean:
This was definitely a very Korean-heavy week — even excluding the time I spent just watching CLOY episodes without intensive study, I almost did more this week than I'd done all year up to this point. I was definitely feeling motivated, so I decided to take advantage of that, but I know it won't be sustainable. It's kind of like when I did roughly 70 hours of French listening in May — I knew I was never going to keep up that pace, but I figured I might as well take advantage of wanting to spend every spare minute on French while I was still in the mood. I know people talk about how beneficial consistency is with learning languages, and I don't disagree with that, but I've also come to realize that it's just not how my brain works, no matter how much I try to force it to. I get burned out regardless of how much time I spend on languages. It's not even burn out as much as that I have a lot of different interests, and I'll get really excited and focused on one for a few weeks, and then that interest wanes and moves on to something else. Maybe doing a consistent amount of work every week would ultimately result in more progress, but language learning is just a hobby for me, so if I'm not enjoying myself, what's the point? It's not like I need to pass a TOPIK exam by a certain deadline or anything. Anyways, I'm pretty sure I've come to this realization in the past, but I still end up feeling guilty somehow when I take language breaks and am inconsistent with language learning, so it's something I have to keep reminding myself of.

I followed through on my plan to rewatch CLOY scenes with the Language Reactor (formerly called Language Learning with Netflix) extension, and I had a lot of fun doing that, which is why I ended up doing so much of it this week. I had said I'd do 1-2 scenes per episode, but it turned out to be more like 5-7, although the scenes varied in length, so some were only a few minutes. The first scene I chose took me almost an hour to get through, although to be fair, it was a long scene with a lot of exposition and specific vocabulary, and I was still figuring out what the best way to work through scenes would be. I think I've settled on a better method now. My process is that I have the extension set to stop after every subtitle, and I only have the Korean showing. I let each line play and try to figure out the meaning as best I can. Some sentences are basic enough that I can understand them perfectly the first time, and some are so complicated that I'm totally lost outside of a word or two. At the beginning I'd try to break down the really complicated sentences word by word, but now I just look at the English subtitle, try to see how the translation connects to the Korean subtitle, and move on. For sentences where there are only 1-2 words I don't understand or a grammar concept I'm unfamiliar with, I break them down word by word (I like to run them through Mirinae and sometimes also Papago to get a better idea of how each component of the sentence works, in addition to looking at the English subtitle), and if I think the vocab is something I should know, I'll add the sentence to my Anki deck. I'll also sometimes add more complicated sentences if I know all the vocab or am at least somewhat familiar with it. I've been trying to limit the amount of cards I add so it doesn't get too overwhelming, and I think I've done a decent job of that — I've added roughly 80 cards, so approximately 1 per scene. I also made sure when choosing scenes that there was at least one South Korean character present and only chose their dialogue to add to Anki, since I know there are differences in the dialect of the North Korean characters (I noticed they frequently use ~오/~소, which I haven't learned about, but Google tells me is an old fashioned or poetic ending). This is only really an issue specific to Crash Landing on You, but I wanted to be sure I was focusing on the kind of language that would be commonly used in South Korea. Even after just a week, I feel like I've made some progress with Korean doing this. I've picked up some new vocab, but I also feel like I've gotten faster at processing the Korean subtitles, which will help once I've finally learned enough vocab to be able to watch entire episodes with Korean subs only, which is my next goal (eventually it will be to watch without subs entirely, but that's a ways off).

Anyways, my original plan was to alternate between watching an episode in its entirety and then rewatching 1-2 scenes, but I ended up just wanting to keep going to the next episode rather than rewatching scenes first, so I finished my rewatch but still have a couple episodes left to rewatch scenes from. After that, I was planning on doing the same thing with either Hotel del Luna or Because This Is My First Life, both of which I've watched before and are on Netflix, but apparently neither of them has Korean subtitles on Netflix, so I can't use the Language Reactor extension with them. I was kind of set on watching one or the other, and I found that they're both on Viki for free with Korean and English subtitles, so I may try to watch them there with Viki learn mode, which operates pretty similarly as the Language Reactor extension. The only major difference is I don't see a way to automatically stop the video after each subtitle, but it's not hard to do that manually. So that's probably what I'll do next, until I get bored and move on to wanting to do something else.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:06 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: chapters 21-23
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: 2.05-2.10
-La casa de papel (season 5): episodes 2-3 (no subs)
-Duolingo: 882 -> 903 crowns (7/7 days)
Total: 3.4 hours

French
-Changer l'eau des fleurs: chapters 74-82
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 14.06-14.08
-Lupin: episode 9 (1x, w/ FR subs), episode 10 (1x, w/o FR subs)
Total: 2.7 hours

German
-Das Mädchen am Strand: chapters 26-32 (done!)
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): episode 3 (1x, w/ DE subs), episode 4 (1x, w/o DE subs)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: lesson 56
Total: 2.2 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: level 6.03
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 7/7 days (28/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: units 4.08-4.10
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: 1 story
-Hotel del Luna: episodes 1-11 (1x, simultaneous EN & KO subs)
-Intensive study of Crash Landing on You scenes: episodes 14-16 (9 scenes)
-Intensive study of Hotel del Luna scenes: episodes 1-10 (64 scenes)
Total: 21.1 hours including kdrama, 7.3 hours without (except for intensive study)

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 255 -> 260 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: 4.04-4.06
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: pages 78-82
Total: 1.8 hours

Korean:
Still doing a lot of Korean study with kdramas, but I did end up doing less this week than last week, and I can feel my focus starting to shift from wanting to watch and work with kdramas 24/7 to wanting to spend time on other things. I definitely would like to finish Hotel del Luna this week, but after that, I'll probably try to choose a new show with a plan of watching only 1-2 episodes per week and actually choosing only 1-2 scenes per episode to go through, instead of what I'm doing now, which is saying I'll only do 1-2 but then somehow ending up going through 6-7. I've been able to use Viki's learn mode to go through scenes pretty well, but I prefer the interface of the Language Reactor extension for Netflix, and it seems to have more helpful features, so I'll probably choose a show that's available there next.

German:
I finished Das Mädchen am Strand this week, which I liked well enough, about the same as the first one. It's not a mind-blowing mystery novel or anything, but it was entertaining enough to keep me interested, but not so complicated that I struggled to come back to it after multiple breaks over the past few months. I don't really have any plans for what I'm going to read next, but I'm not really in the mood to go searching for something new in German to read right now, so I may just continue with the series for now since that'll be easier than finding something new. I still needed to look up multiple words per page in Das Mädchen am Strand, so I don't think the series is too easy for me yet. I don't plan on reading all 8 books in the series, but I think it's good reading material for the moment.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Sep 19, 2021 3:38 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: chapters 24-25
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: 2.11-2.14
-La casa de papel (season 5): episode 4 (no subs)
-Duolingo: 903 -> 914 crowns (5/7 days)
Total: 1.8 hours

French
-Changer l'eau des fleurs: chapters 83-91
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 14.09-14.10
-Lupin: episode 10 (1x, w/ FR subs) (done!)
-L'Agence/The Parisian Agency: Exclusive Properties: episode 1 (1x, w/o subs)
Total: 2.6 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 1-2
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): episode 4 (1x, w/ DE subs), episode 5 (1x, w/o DE subs)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 1.6 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 6.04-6.05
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 7/7 days (41/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: 1 story
-Hotel del Luna: episodes 12-16 (1x, simultaneous EN & KO subs)
-Intensive study of Hotel del Luna scenes: episodes 11-15 (19 scenes)
Total: 10.2 hours including kdrama, 3.0 hours without (except for intensive study)

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 260 -> 266 crowns (7/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.9 hours

Didn't manage to get as much done this week. My workload increased, and I'm also transitioning to spending some time in the office (although I'm still primarily working from home) which started this week, and that just messed with my schedule a bit. It was also just one of those weeks where I didn't feel as focused on language-learning which made it more challenging to fit everything in. I imagine this week will be pretty similar, but I'm hoping to do a little better.

French:
I finished Lupin this week. I liked the show overall, but I still think the first couple episodes were the most fun for me, and then my interest declined. My comprehension was okay, but I did a fair amount of half-watching the show, which didn't help. I then started L'Agence on Netflix, which is a reality show about a family-run real estate agency for luxury properties. I thought it would be interesting because I was expecting to see different parts of Paris and luxurious homes, but the show is a little more about the family running the agency than I'm interested in (for example, there's time devoted to some of the sons in the agency trying to set their grandmother up with someone from a dating site). However, it's only 5 episodes total, and I should finally be getting the second season of Le bureau from the library in the next few weeks (I've been on the waitlist for months), so I wanted to find something I could finish quickly, so I'll probably end up continuing with it. I don't plan on rewatching the episodes with French subs, though. My comprehension of the first episode was pretty good, and since it's a reality show, I'm not really worried about missing plot details. Plus, I'm just not interested in the show enough to want to rewatch episodes.

Korean:
As I suspected would happen, I was feeling less interested in spending all my time on Korean this week. I just barely finished my rewatch of Hotel del Luna, although I still need to pick a scene or two to go through intensively from the last episode before I move on to a new show. I'm excited to start a new show (I still plan on rewatching Because This Is My First life and working through scenes intensively at some point, but I'm itching to watch something new right now since I did two rewatches back to back), specifically something on Netflix, which has a better interface for how I've been trying to work through scenes.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:46 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: nothing
-La casa de papel (season 5): nothing
-Duolingo: 914 -> 919 crowns (4/7 days)
Total: 0.5 hours

French
-Changer l'eau des fleurs: chapters 92-94 (done!)
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-L'Agence/The Parisian Agency: Exclusive Properties: nothing
Total: 0.2 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 3-7
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): episode 5 (1x, w/ DE subs)
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 1.6 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels 6.06-6.07
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 7/7 days (53/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 7/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: 1 story
-Run On: episodes 1-11 (1x, simultaneous EN & KO subs)
-Intensive study of Run On scenes: episodes 1-5
Total: 16.7 hours including kdrama, 3.9 hours without (except for intensive study)

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 266 -> 268 crowns (6/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.9 hours

I'm a bit pressed for time today so this will be brief! I was correct that this past week would be challenging to fit in a ton of work, although it ended up being worse than expected. I just didn't feel like I had a ton of time to devote to languages, and I also wasn't feeling motivated enough to make an effort to fit things in when I did have time. This week will likely be similar. However, I am due to finally get the second season of Le bureau des légendes from the library this week, and I'll only have two weeks to get through all the episodes, so that will definitely have to be my priority once I get those DVDs. I'd also like to catch up on my intensive study of kdrama episodes before watching the rest of Run On, but I doubt I'll finish that this week. I'm trying to be okay with just getting done what I can fit in and what I'm willing to spend time on, even if I can't get done as much as I'd ideally like.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Oct 03, 2021 5:17 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: nothing
-La casa de papel (season 5): nothing
-Duolingo: 914 -> 914 crowns (0/7 days)
Total: 0.0 hours

French
-Bonjour tristesse: chapters 1-6
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-L'Agence/The Parisian Agency: Exclusive Properties: nothing
-Le bureau des légendes (season 2): episodes 1-3 (1x w/o subs, 1x w/ EN subs)
Total: 5.3 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 8-12
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): nothing
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 0.9 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels nothing
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 6/7 days (64/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 6/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 6/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: nothing
-Run On: nothing
-Intensive study of Run On scenes: nothing
Total: 0.6 hours

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 268 -> 268 crowns (5/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.3 hours

Another week where I was just a bit too busy and haven't wanted to make the time for languages, so I didn't end up doing a ton. I did get the second season of Le bureau des légendes from my library, so I've been prioritizing watching that over any other TV so I can finish before it's due back. I also started Bonjour tristesse this week, which I've been enjoying so far. In general, I've been prioritizing Le bureau des légendes and reading in French and German, plus daily Korean Anki/Memrise and Itaian Duolingo, although I've been a little less successful there. Spanish is being neglected a bit at the moment. I'm hoping to have more time to devote to it soon, but it won't be in the immediate future.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Oct 10, 2021 1:01 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: nothing
-La casa de papel (season 5): nothing
-Duolingo: 923 -> 924 crowns (1/7 days)
Total: 0.1 hours

French
-Bonjour tristesse: chapters 7-9
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
-L'Agence/The Parisian Agency: Exclusive Properties: nothing
-Le bureau des légendes (season 2): episodes 4-9 (1x w/o subs, 1x w/ EN subs); episode 10 (1x w/o subs)
Total: 13.3 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 13-17
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): nothing
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 0.8 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: levels nothing
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 3/7 days (71/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 4/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 5/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: nothing
-Run On: nothing
-Intensive study of Run On scenes: nothing
Total: 0.6 hours

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 268 -> 269 crowns (3/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.2 hours

Still incredibly busy this past week and didn't have a ton of time for languages. As I mentioned last week, I prioritized finishing the second season of Le bureau des légendes. I just need to rewatch the last episode with subs to make sure I didn't miss any important details, and then I'm done. The first couple episodes, my comprehension was pretty terrible, but I could tell my comprehension was steadily increasing with each episode, and it was at a pretty decent level by the end. I have been thinking I might want to switch up my language learning rotation in 2022 and rather than rotate languages between days, rotate them between learning material, so read an entire book in Spanish and then switch to a French book, or watch an entire season of TV in French and then switch to a German show, etc. Or something like that. I haven't figured out exactly what to do. I do well with routines/schedules, but sometimes I need to switch things up so I don't get bored, and I think keeping more focused on one book/show in one language at a time could help. It's something I'll be thinking about, in any case. I figure it doesn't hurt to try to change things up, and if it doesn't work out, I can go back to my old schedule.

Anyways, I had been planning on holding off from immediately getting season 3 of Le bureau des légendes from the library because I don't really have the time to spend another 2 weeks just on this show, but I really enjoyed the second season, and it ended on a cliffhanger, so I'm tempted to continue with it. But really it'd probably be best to take a break for a few weeks at least.
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Nov 07, 2021 1:30 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: nothing
-Duolingo: 927 -> 929 crowns (3/7 days)
Total: 0.3 hours

French
-Le bal des folles: chapters 1-4
-Le meilleur pâtissier (season 10): episode 2 (1x, w/o subs)
-French newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: nothing
Total: 2.1 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 21-25
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): nothing
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 0.9 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: nothing
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 0/7 days (82/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 0/7 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 0/7 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: nothing
-Run On: nothing
-Intensive study of Run On scenes: nothing
Total: 0.0 hours

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 269 -> 270 crowns (3/7 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.4 hours

I ended up taking a break for a few weeks. I think it was probably pretty apparent from my last few posts that I was struggling make time for languages, and I tried to do at least a bare minimum, but even that started feeling like too much work. My schedule also started becoming unpredictable which made things even harder. So I took a break, and this week I felt ready to do a little work again.

My primary goal remains to finish the unofficial half challenges in reading I'm doing for French and German. I'm pretty much planning on focusing on that to the expense of everything else. I need to get in 8.7 pages/day in French and 9.6/day in German, so I'm just rounding both up to 10 to be safe. I normally devote two days a week to reading in each language respectively, which would mean 35 page chunks, which is a bit much for me to get through in one day. So this week I decided to try 10 pages/day in each language, which sounds less intimidating to me, even though they come out to the same by the end of the week. So far it's been working well.

I'm going to try to also get in some TV watching (at least in French — I don't have a new German show picked out or a ton of options I'm eager to check out, other than the last episode of Biohackers, which I'll get to at some point) and hopefully Duolingo and Anki. I may take a break from Spanish reading/listening. I'm not much into either of the two books I've been reading over the past few months, and I finished La casa de papel and don't have a new show I want to watch right now. I do think I need to mix up my language learning schedule in 2022. I'd like to spend more time focused on each language with reading/TV rather than doing little bits of everything spread out because it gets too hard to really get invested in a book/show when I'm spreading out my reading/TV watching. That's kind of what I'm doing with reading right now, and I think it's helping.

Before I took a total break but after my last post, I did manage to finish La casa de papel (I definitely liked it less than previous seasons and my comprehension wasn't great, but since there are only 5 episodes left to be released, I still plan on finishing the show when they're available), Le bureau des légendes season 2 (really enjoyed it, and I plan on continuing with the show, but probably not until 2022), and Bonjour tristesse (pretty enjoyable and not too challenging. It was nice to have something short so I was able to finish it pretty quickly. I also watched the (English-language) film from 1958 for fun afterwards which allowed me to confirm I followed the plot well).

I've also been watching Squid Game with English and Korean subtitles, but to be honest, I'm mostly watching it for entertainment and to keep up with popular culture, so I've pretty much been ignoring the Korean subtitles and can't say it's aided my learning at all. My intensive kdrama watching has been on hold; I do want to continue with it, but probably not for a few weeks, or even until 2022. I've started the 10th season of Le meilleur pâtissier as well and will be continuing with that, but probably will end up taking a break from German listening for the rest of the year. And finally, I started reading Le bal des folles by Victoria Mas, about a woman's asylum in the late 19th century with a supernatural element which I'm finding very interesting so far. There's also a film adaptation that was released recently on Amazon, so I'll probably watch that once I've finished the book.

So those are my plans at the moment! The end of the year is always tough to get much done, but I'm planning on taking some extra vacation time around Thanksgiving and Christmas this year which will hopefully give me a little extra time to do some language work.
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brokenrecord
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Posts: 196
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 11:09 pm
Location: Michigan, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), French (low intermediate), German (low intermediate), Korean (beginner), Italian (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 68#p202925
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Mon Nov 22, 2021 4:45 pm

Spanish
-La casa de los espíritus: nothing
-La flor y la muerte: nothing
-Spanish newspapers: nothing
-Practice Makes Perfect Intermediate Spanish: 3.05-3.09
-Duolingo: 929 -> 935 crowns (6/14 days)
Total: 1.0 hours

French
-Le bal des folles: chapters 5-9
-Le meilleur pâtissier (season 10): episode 3 (1x, w/o subs)
-French newspapers: 1 article
-Practice Makes Perfect French Verbs: 15.01-15.02
Total: 4.1 hours

German
-Die alte Dame am Meer: chapters 26-36 (done!)
-German newspapers: nothing
-Biohackers (season 2): nothing
-Grammatik aktiv A1-B1: nothing
Total: 1.6 hours

Korean
-Talk to Me in Korean: nothing
-Talk to Me in Korean Level 6 Memrise: 6/14 days (82/190 items)
-Korean Grammer In Use Beginning: nothing
-Anki: my sentence deck: 6/14 days
-Anki: Evita's sentence deck: 6/14 days
-Korean Stories for Language Learners: nothing
-Run On: nothing
-Intensive study of Run On scenes: nothing
Total: 0.6 hours

Italian
-Italian newspapers: nothing
-Duolingo: 270 -> 273 crowns (6/14 days)
-Practice Makes Perfect Italian Verbs: nothing
-Harry Potter e i doni della morte: nothing
Total: 0.9 hours

I skipped posting an update last week (and yesterday), so the above is for the past 2 weeks. I was feeling very motivated after my last post and even did a little grammar, but then at the end of the week, I got a Covid booster and also had to start getting ready to go out of town for over a week, so I was a bit mentally exhausted and didn't have the energy to do a ton. I tried to keep up with reading last week but was still a bit inconsistent. I'm on vacation now for the next week and a couple days, though, so I'm hoping to get caught up and get back on track this week. Probably still just French/German reading, and hopefully I can also fit in Duolingo/Anki, but we'll see. When my routine gets disrupted, I find it hard to remember to fit things in even if I actually have more free time overall.
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brokenrecord
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Posts: 196
Joined: Thu May 05, 2016 11:09 pm
Location: Michigan, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate), French (low intermediate), German (low intermediate), Korean (beginner), Italian (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 68#p202925
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Re: Michelle's 2021 Log (Spanish, French, German, Korean, and Italian)

Postby brokenrecord » Sun Jan 30, 2022 3:02 pm

So I took another break from posting (and mostly from languages) for a couple months, but I'm back now finally to wrap up 2021, just a tad late (hey, at least it's still January!). After my last post, I only focused on French and German reading so I could complete the half Super Challenges in reading for both, and… drumroll… I succeeded! I finished Le bal des folles, started and completed Quand nos souvenirs viendront danser, finished Die alte Dame am Meer, started and finished Der Mann auf der Hallig, and got partway through Die Frau auf Nordstand. But I did have to push myself a bit to get there, so once I met that goal, I felt like I needed a real break from languages, so I took a total break from everything for several weeks. I also knew I wanted to change up my language learning routine in 2022 but hadn't figured out what exactly I wanted to do, so I needed time to think about that. But this week I started feeling bored with my other hobbies and decided it was time to get back to things. I'll save what I've been doing and my plans for this year for a new 2022 log, but first I want to wrap up 2021.

2021 Totals:
Spanish: 35.4 hours of listening (36.3 including ES subs); 19.1 hours of reading; 2.8 hours of grammar; 8.2 hours of Duolingo; total: 66.4 hours
French: 109.9 hours of listening (135.5 including FR subs); 21.4 hours of reading; 2.9 hours of grammar; total: 159.8 hours
German: 20.9 hours of listening (35.1 including DE subs); 24.1 hours of reading; 1.3 hours of grammar; total: 60.5 hours
Korean: 11.6 hours of SRS; 1.3 hours of reading; 7.4 hours of grammar; 19.8 hours of intensive kdrama study; total: 40.0 hours
Italian: 23.5 hours of Duolingo; 1.6 hours of reading; 1.2 hours of grammar; total: 26.2 hours

At the start of the year I was aiming to complete a full Super Challenge in Spanish and half Super Challenges in German and French. I ended up with half a Super Challenge in reading for each language (2573 pages in French, 2503 in German, and 2997 in Spanish), a half Super Challenge in listening for German (5168 minutes), and a full for Spanish (9003 minutes) and French (10729 minutes). When the Super Challenge started mid-2020, I didn't sign up for it officially because I knew I'd find it stressful to keep up pace and ultimately it would be demotivating for me, but I wanted to track how close I would get naturally to a full or half challenge. Unfortunately unofficially tracking how much I was doing still led me to feeling pressure to meet my goals, and by the end it was kind of a chore to get my reading in. I did find it motivating at the start, and I get why other people find it useful, but I'm the kind of person where, if I set a goal for like 1000 pages and only get 950, I'll feel like I've failed, even though 950 is still an accomplishment and there's nothing magical about 1000 pages. I also started tracking everything I was doing in all languages late in 2020, so I don't really need the Super Challenge any more to monitor how much time I'm devoting to each language, which was part of what was appealing about it for me at first. I'm not sorry I tried this experiment, but I don't plan to try it again in the future. I'm looking forward to reading feeling like less of an obligation in 2022 and being able to spend my time on whatever I feel like.

Overall, I spent less time on languages in 2021 than 2020, although it was probably my best year for French since I picked it back up a few years ago, but definitely my worst year for Spanish. Since 2018, the least amount of Spanish listening I had done in a year was 135 hours, so 35 is a massive drop. I have been missing Spanish a bit recently and am looking forward to getting back to it this year. I'm guessing I won't end up spending a lot more time on languages in 2022 than 2021 — I have other hobbies and things I like to spend my time on, and language-learning isn't the only way I want to spend my free time. But even though I'm sure I'll disappear for weeks/months at a time, language learning is a marathon, not a sprint, so I'll just keep chugging along.
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