Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish and French (and now, Esperanto!)

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philomath
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May Results

Postby philomath » Sat May 28, 2022 9:49 pm

I decided to do my May recap early and get a head start my June goals. I'm excited about my new plan for balancing my hobbies, so I want to try it out now! Below are my May goals and what I accomplished (spoiler alert: not much).

philomath wrote:Anki Stats

Spanish: 615 cards, 98% mature --> 615 cards, 99% mature
French: 2681 cards, 87% mature --> 2926 cards, 84% mature
Italian: 364 cards, 89% mature --> 364 cards, 97% mature
Ancient Greek: 72 cards, 88% mature --> No cards! I decided to delete this deck since I haven't studied Ancient Greek in a while.

Goals
This month I'm continuing to focus on French. I've signed up for both the Six Week Challenge and the Super Challenge, and I'm going to Montreal on May 14th for five days!

French
[ ] Finish Édito Units 1 and 2. (Nope... I only made it halfway through Unit 1.)
[ ] Finish Kwiziq Levels A2 and B1. (I finished all of Level A2 and 40% of Level B1.)
[ ] Finish Speechling Beginner Level 3. (Also no.)
[ ] Do 450 minutes of listening practice (podcasts, TV shows, etc.). (300 minutes)
[X] Have two iTalki lessons. (Yes, and I found a new iTalki teacher whom I really like!)
[X] Finish reading La familia grande and start reading another book. (Yes, and I started reading Phobos by Victor Dixen.)

Ideally I'd have even more iTalki lessons, but I'm still feeling pretty burnt out. I need to find a teacher who I enjoy talking to. In the meantime, there are lots of speaking prompts in Édito, so I'll work on those.

And here are the goals I made for Spanish later in the month:
philomath wrote:[ ] Practice speaking and/or writing for 3 hours. (Nope. :()
[ ] Schedule some iTalki lessons for June. (I'm still waiting for my usual teacher to open her schedule for June.)
[X] Make a list of grammar topics to review. (Mainly irregular verbs and the subjunctive.)
[X] Catch up on Anki reviews.

I'll put my June goals in a separate post.

- - -

Edited on May 31 to add the following:

Stats
  • Spanish: 1.00 hours (100% L)
  • French: 29.75 hours (19% L, 5% S, 34% R, 5% W, 37% O)
Last edited by philomath on Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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June Goals

Postby philomath » Sat May 28, 2022 10:33 pm

Anki Stats

Spanish: 615 cards, 99% mature
French: 2926 cards, 84% mature
Italian: 364 cards, 97% mature

Goals

Spanish
[ ] Have two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Review verb conjugations.

French
[ ] Finish Édito Units 1-4 and half of Unit 5.
[ ] Do 450 minutes of listening practice.
[ ] Have two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Finish Kwiziq Level B1.
[ ] Finish reading Phobos.

Compared to previous months, my French goals are really ambitious, but I think I can do it! During my commute I'll focus on the listening and reading goals, after work I'll focus on Édito, and on the weekends I'll have my iTalki lessons. Easy peasy. :)
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:48 pm

25May22–31May22

Spanish
27May22: I listened to an episode of Quémese después de Escuchar.

French
27May22: I listened to an episode of Ça s'explique and read more of Phobos.

28May22: I practiced pronouncing sentences on Speechling. I've been trying to refine my pronunciation of the vowels. Today I was focusing on /y/, but also on /i/ which sounds a little bit different than it does in English. I'm not sure how to describe it—maybe the French version is slightly more closed?

29May22: I was supposed to have an iTalki lesson, but I woke up not feeling well so I decided to cancel it. :( Instead, I spent some time working on Édito Unit 1. One of my favorite language-learning moments is when I learn a word and then encounter it by accident right after. Yesterday I discovered the website Bedetheque.com, and then I encountered the word bédéthèque in Édito!

31May22: I did another section of Édito and listened to an episode of Ça s'explique.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Sat Jun 04, 2022 3:13 am

01Jun22–03Jun22

Spanish
03Jun22: I checked iTalki and found out that my Spanish teacher is on vacation—until October! I'm happy for her that she's taking a break, but now I need to find someone else to take lessons with.

French
01Jun22: I realized I'll have to do more pages of Édito per day if I want to finish a unit a week. So I did a few pages while I was watching TV with my boyfriend. However I obviously couldn't do any of the listening comprehension or speaking exercises while I was watching TV, so I skipped around to the exercises I could do. I'll go back to complete them later this week. I also did a couple of quizzes on Kwiziq.

02Jun22: In the morning I did some more quizzes on Kwiziq and read another chapter of Phobos. After work, I finished the pages in Édito that I had half-completed the day before. I think skipping around like that is a good method for me. I only have two pages left of Unit 1 now!

I also watched another episode of Dix pour cent. I haven't been watching any TV in French lately, but I think I should start again. There are a couple of new French shows on Netflix that look interesting, and I still haven't finished Dix pour cent or Plan coeur.

03Jun22: I had the day off from work, so I started the morning by listening to an episode of Ça s'explique and reviewing sentences on Speechling. I also did another page in Édito.

Exciting news: I joined the Alliance Française of Boston! After lunch I went over there to check out their library. They're renovating the center now, so only part of the library is available, but it was still really cool. I browsed their adult fiction section but didn't find any books that interested me. A lot of them sounded kind of depressing, honestly! I did see a couple of bandes dessinées and young adult novels that might be good though.

Later, I finally finished Édito Unit 1! The only thing I skipped was the page called Ateliers, which listed some group activities.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Mon Jun 06, 2022 3:38 am

04Jun22–05Jun22

French
04Jun22: This morning I did something I'd been meaning to do for a while, which was take notes on some of the Kwiziq grammar lessons. Usually I'm too lazy to write in my French notebook, but it really is helpful for remembering grammar rules. I also read some more of Phobos. I wouldn't say it's a great book, but it's entertaining enough to keep reading. I'm not sure if I'll read the rest of the series though.

05Jun22: In the morning I continued taking notes on the Kwiziq grammar lessons. I only focused on the ones that I had a lot of trouble with.

Later I was supposed to have a lesson with my new favorite iTalki teacher (I believe I should be calling her Teacher F to continue this list). However she canceled on me, so instead I had a 30-minute trial lesson with a new teacher, Teacher G. It went really well! At the beginning of the lesson she was speaking very slowly, but then she said she would switch to her normal speaking speed since I could understand her so well. She also said she didn’t have many corrections for me, so she would pick a more challenging conversation topic next time. I’d only booked a lesson with her because my other teacher was unavailable, but I think I’ll take lessons with her on a regular basis too.

I didn't get to work on Édito this weekend. The course that I'm taking for my master's degree is pretty time-consuming! If I want to complete another unit this week I'll need to do two pages per day, but I don't know if that will be possible...
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Mon Jun 13, 2022 4:07 am

06Jun22–12Jun22

Not much language-learning to report this week. I've been super busy with apartment-hunting, my master's degree, and work. :(

French
06Jun22: Before work I began doing Édito Unit 2. I finished the first page except for the speaking and writing prompts. During my commute I read more of Phobos. Then I had to work late and do homework for my master’s class for the rest of the night.

10Jun22: I watched another episode of Dix pour cent. I've been watching with French subtitles, but I think it's really about time I stopped. There were only a handful of words I didn't know in this episode, so it's not like the subtitles are helping me learn vocab anymore.

11Jun22: I watched a video from the YouTube channel Le Souffle des Mots, which is a book recommendation channel.

12Jun22: I listened to an episode of Peak TV. Later, I got to meet some members of the forum in person: Xenops, Deinonysus, and lichtrausch. It was a lot of fun! :D
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Sat Jun 18, 2022 4:26 am

13Jun22–17Jun22

French
So much for doing one unit of Édito each week. :/ I finally found an apartment, but I still have a lot of studying to do for the master's course I'm taking this semester (molecular biology). At the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is open a French textbook. So I've been doing more listening and reading instead:

13Jun22: I listened to an episode of the podcast Frictions. I also watched part of an episode of Dix pour cent. I meant to watch without French subtitles, but I kept going back and reading them because I didn't want to miss anything. Next time I need to be more strict: no subtitles!

14Jun22: I watched Dix pour cent (without subtitles!) and read more of Phobos.

15Jun22: I listened to Ç’a s’explique and Frictions.

17Jun22: More listening to Frictions and reading Phobos.

This weekend is going to be really busy because I have a ton of assignments due for my master's course next week, but I also have Monday off from work. Hopefully I can start working through Édito again.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Mon Jun 20, 2022 3:48 am

18Jun22–19Jun22

French
19Jun22: First I reviewed some more sentences on Speechling. Then I had a 45-minute iTalki lesson with Teacher G. It was fun! We spent most of the time discussing the pros and cons of social media. I didn't have to revert to English at all, which was nice. However I wish I had taken notes on the things I didn't know how to say. Instead I just talked around them, which was good because it didn't interrupt the conversation as much, but not as good for learning. After the lesson I tried to remember all of the words I wanted to look up, but I'm sure I forgot some.

Later, I finished the second season of Dix pour cent and continued reading Phobos. I want to finish the book this month, which means I'll need to read around 30 pages each day. That shouldn't be too hard—I just need to remember to do it.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:05 pm

20Jun22

Spanish
20Jun22: This morning I had my first Spanish lesson in almost three months. Before the lesson, I spent some time writing in my journal in Spanish. Interestingly, at the beginning I realized I was translating from French to Spanish in my head, rather than from English to Spanish. Eventually though, it became harder to translate from French. I think it would be helpful to practice translating from French to Spanish and vice versa more often.

Anyway, my Spanish lesson was good. It started a half hour later than planned because we were having issues with the iTalki classroom, but then we switched to Skype. It my first lesson with this teacher and she was definitely more used to teaching beginners. I could hear myself making some really basic conjugation mistakes, but she kept complimenting my Spanish skills. Then she pulled up a list of reflexive verbs and asked me to translate them and conjugate them, which was way too easy. At that point I was thinking I probably wouldn't book another lesson with her, but then she switched back to regular conversation which was nice. At the end of the lesson she sent me an upper-intermediate level article from the website Hablacultura, which we can discuss during our next lesson. I think I’ll try another lesson with her after all.

Later, I listened to an episode of the podcast El Hilo. I love listening to podcasts in Spanish! There are so many interesting ones. However I think if I want to challenge myself, I should watch a Netflix show. Maybe I'll rewatch La casa de papel.

French
20Jun22: I read more of Phobos.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Sun Jun 26, 2022 12:27 am

21Jun22–25Jun22

Spanish
25Jun22: This morning I had a lesson with a new iTalki teacher. She has experience with DELE prep, and several of her reviews were from students who were studying for the C1 exam. She told me that she thought my level was around a B2, which really surprised me. I don't know how she decided that based on a 30-minute conversation about simple topics... but it was nice to hear even if it isn't true. :) Anyway, she sent me two PDFs: one was a DELE B2 prep book and one was a DELE C1 prep book. I definitely appreciate the free resources! I think I'll try going through the B2 book sometime, although I still want to focus on French.

I've noticed I need to work on one thing with my Spanish conversation skills. I'm thinking of the little filler words that you say when someone is telling you a story, like "Oh, cool!" "Nice!" "Sounds fun!" etc. Words that don't really convey a lot but show that you're listening and you get what they're saying. I have no problem with these phrases in French, but for some reason in Spanish I feel so awkward. Maybe it's because I spent so long learning Spanish without having conversations? Anyway, today I tried to pay attention to the phrases my teacher was using in those instances. I think I just need to keep paying attention and practicing those phrases during conversation.

French
21Jun22: During my commute, I read ~40 pages of Phobos. I’ve hit the point where reading the book has gotten easier and I no longer spend much time looking things up. To give some numbers, the last ten chapters spanned 59 pages and I looked up 17 words/phrases. (I track that by highlighting everything that I look up in the Kindle app.)

22Jun22: More Phobos.

23Jun22: More Phobos, now on page 271 out of 487.

24Jun22: More Phobos. I also decided to cancel my Kwiziq subscription. I'll probably still refer to the free grammar lessons, but I got tired of the quizzes. They gave the same sentences over and over, and some of the topics seemed so unimportant.

25Jun22: I finished reading Adieu triste amour for the second time. I wish I could go back to Montreal and buy some more bandes dessinées! Though I still haven't read the other one I bought. :lol:
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