Once more into the fray // Robbie's French Log

[robbierobbie]

Been a little more than two weeks since my last update. My apologies! Been really busy, but I'm going on leave next week until the second week of Feb, so I'm hoping for some major language improvements during that time.

Haven't been reading much. When I'm busy and more tired than usual, it's way easier to turn on a TV show or audiobook than it is to actually read intensively.

Good news is I finally finished the final 30% of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (in French). If you read my earlier posts, I was reading the Harry Potter series in German, but stopped around the 70% mark of the fifth book and never continued. My German has been slowly deteriorating over the last ~2 years, but given how quickly my French has improved back to a level I'm proud of, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to do the same with my German someday soon.

Anyway, I just wanted to finally finish Harry Potter #5, so I started listening to the French audiobook. There were only a few chapters remaining, but I'm glad I managed to finally tick that box. I was very surprised how easy it was to understand. The Percy Jackson series doesn't use literary tenses (passé simple, etc.) so in the back of my mind I've been worrying about finally picking up a book that does use literary tenses and having to "re-learn how to read". Thankfully I was clearly overestimating how difficult this would be, and it didn't prove to be much of an issue at all. In addition to that, there weren't many unknown words, and I was able to jump right into Harry Potter without needing to "adjust" to the author / translator.

I'm also still doing lazy Anki every day (5 new i+1 sentence cards each day).

I also started writing little journal entries in French each day, about 300 words each. Currently on 7-day streak. I need to consult a dictionary to double-check something every ~100 words on average. This just shows the discrepancy between my active vocab and my passive vocab. It's a good way for me to identify gaps in my vocabulary.

The Numbers

Watched French TV for 25 hours, 25 minutes.

This is actually a little bit less than usual, considering this was over 14 / 15 days. Nevertheless, it's a number I'm pretty proud of, because it finally pushed me over the ~100 hour mark.

The Way Forward

Need to start the intensive reading again, but realistically I can't see that happening until I'm on leave (17 Jan onwards).

I'm going to keep watching French TV, aiming for ~20 hours a week if possible. I'll mix in some audiobooks when I'm walking to work in the mornings and when I walk home in the evenings to help me reach that goal.

Keep doing lazy Anki every day.

Maintain my writing streak as much as possible.

[frenchfish55]

Hello Robbie. Do you still plan to pass B2 french exam in 2022.
We miss you