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

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philomath
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October Goals

Postby philomath » Sat Oct 01, 2022 8:44 pm

October Goals

Spanish
[ ] Finish reading El tiempo entre costuras.
[ ] Read one article every week and write a response.

French
[ ] Do Chapters 6–21 of Phonétique essentielle du français.
[ ] Review Unit 1 of Édito B1 and finish Unit 2.
[ ] Do 9 hours of listening.
[ ] Have at least two iTalki lessons.
[ ] Begin reading another book.
[ ] Read one article every week and write a response.

(Edit: I forgot about Édito!)
Last edited by philomath on Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:58 am

01Oct22–04Oct22

Spanish
01Oct22: On a whim, I subscribed to Vix and watched the first episode of El tiempo entre costuras, without subtitles. I've seen it before, but I forgot how good it is! It follows the book pretty closely.

03Oct22: I read a couple more chapters of El tiempo entre costuras. I also rewatched the first episode of the show, again without subtitles.

04Oct22: I continued reading El tiempo entre costuras. I have less than 100 pages left.

French
03Oct22: I listened to French Expat for 1 hour.

04Oct22: I listened to another episode of French Expat. Later, I did Chapter 6 of Phonétique essentielle du français.

Other
After I got back from Spain, I completely forgot about the schedule I had made for managing my hobbies. My original plan was actually to spend September focusing on my writing, but I only spent three hours working on those projects. Now that I've just resumed French, I'm hesitant to drop it for writing. I guess I'll need to re-make the schedule.

I think it might be nice to have a small section of this log dedicated to keeping track of my writing progress. This log helps motivate me to study languages, after all! Hopefully that's no problem... I think I've seen other logs mention non-language activities.
Last edited by philomath on Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:53 am

05Oct22–07Oct22

Spanish
05Oct22: I listened to an episode of Quémese después de Escuchar.

06Oct22: I continued reading El tiempo entre costuras.

07Oct22: I started reading an article from El País, but the bus ride was too bumpy to continue.

Thoughts

I think I made my goals for October way too high. It's hard to tell what I should work on when I do have time for languages. I'm going to make another post with revised goals.

Writing
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to start including writing updates in this log! I’ll put them at the end of the post so it’s easy to skip them.

For my first update, I figured I’d list my current projects and my progress in them:
  • Sci-Fi Novel: I started in 2017 and wrote three drafts between then and the end of 2020. I'm currently brainstorming for the fourth draft which will be (yet another) complete rewrite. I should probably give up and shelve this project, but I can’t! A few months ago I sat down and brainstormed how I could improve the overall premise and plot, but then I got a little overwhelmed and started working on my next project instead...
  • Contemporary Fiction Novella: This is just supposed to be a fun project. I’ve never written a novella before and I think it’ll be nice to have a short project that I can finish more quickly. So far I’ve outlined half of it, and I don’t think it’ll take very long to outline the rest. It would be nice to write it during NaNoWriMo next month.
Last edited by philomath on Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Revised October Goals

Postby philomath » Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:53 am

Revised October Goals

Spanish
[ ] Finish reading El tiempo entre costuras.

French
[ ] Do Chapters 6–21 of Phonétique essentielle du français.
[ ] Review Unit 1 of Édito B1 and finish Unit 2.
[ ] Have at least two iTalki lessons.
Last edited by philomath on Sun Oct 16, 2022 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Tue Oct 11, 2022 2:45 am

08Oct22–10Oct22

Spanish

09Oct22: I finished El tiempo entre costuras! I liked it a lot, but I’m excited to move on to other books.

10Oct22: I had the day off at work, so I went to The Book Barn in Niantic, CT. They had a decent selection of language books, including a little shelf dedicated to sign languages, a shelf for Hindi and Sanskrit, and a few shelves for French, Russian, and Spanish. I didn't find any books that interested me though.

Thoughts
I want to be more productive this upcoming week. Tonight I divided my French monthly goals into weekly goals, and then I split those weekly goals into different study sessions which I put on Google calendar. I also scheduled a few writing sessions throughout the week. I'm not going to be too hard on myself if I don't follow the schedule perfectly; I just want to have a structure to follow so I don't wonder what I should be doing every night. We'll see how that works!
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby cito » Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:49 am

philomath wrote:I had the day off at work, so I went to The Book Barn in Niantic, CT. They had a decent selection of language books, including a little shelf dedicated to sign languages, a shelf for Hindi and Sanskrit, and a few shelves for French, Russian, and Spanish.


I live near the book-barn! It's my favorite spot in the whole world! That's actually where I bought my copy of War and Peace in Russian (and a bilingual Russian/English book of stories). Their Greek and Latin section is pretty good, though the majority is in translation (and at their "Chapter Three" location). It's so funny that you ended up there! They had a copy of Teach Yourself Sanskrit that I almost bought, I wonder if it's still there :lol:. I also found a 70's Finnish book (I think teach yourself also?) and an old Croatian Phrasebook. I can't believe you went!
However,
philomath wrote:I didn't find any books that interested me though.


that is certainly a possibility. It can definitely be hit or miss in some sections.
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50 French Books: 20 / 50
LLPSI-FA: 33 / 35
Greek ASSIMIL: 29 / 100
Russian ASSIMIL: 43 / 100
(On Pause)
Latin ASSIMIL: 29 / 101
Spanish ASSIMIL: 40 / 100

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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:11 am

cito wrote:I live near the book-barn! It's my favorite spot in the whole world! That's actually where I bought my copy of War and Peace in Russian (and a bilingual Russian/English book of stories). Their Greek and Latin section is pretty good, though the majority is in translation (and at their "Chapter Three" location). It's so funny that you ended up there! They had a copy of Teach Yourself Sanskrit that I almost bought, I wonder if it's still there :lol:. I also found a 70's Finnish book (I think teach yourself also?) and an old Croatian Phrasebook. I can't believe you went!

That's awesome; I wish there was a Book Barn closer to me! Fortunately it was easy to stop at on the car ride from New York (where my family lives) to Boston, so I'll definitely go back sometime. :D
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Wed Oct 12, 2022 12:22 pm

11Oct22

Spanish
I listened to Hoy en EL PAÍS for 13 minutes. Later, I watched the second episode of El tiempo entre costuras.

French
On the way to work, I listened to an episode of Ça s'explique about the commercialization of water in Quebec. I was a little distracted, so I didn't really follow the discussion. On the way home, I listened to the episode again, this time taking notes (in English) to make myself pay more attention. However, there were some parts that I didn't understand no matter how many times I replayed them.

Therefore, I decided to try a little experiment when I got home from work. First, I used Audacity to record the podcast episode. Then I used the website Sonix.ai to generate a transcript for it. It definitely wasn’t perfect, but it was really helpful! For example, at the beginning, I heard that the Québécois entrepreneur Olivier Primeau had bought the rights to export 36% of the subterranean water in Quebec. I inferred from context that he had bought the rights to exportation, but I couldn't understand the verb they actually used. When I read the transcript, I realized they had used "se porter acquéreur", and that he hadn't acquired the rights to export the water, but rather to exploit it.

Anyway, I listened to the episode one more time while reading the transcript and trying to correct it. There were still a few parts where I couldn't quite tell what was said. It was also difficult because it wasn't a scripted conversation, so the speakers would start to say something, then interrupt themselves to bring up another point, and so on. The episode was 20 minutes, so it was a little too long to do such an intensive exercise. By the end, I had stopped focusing on correcting every word of the transcript and was just focusing on following the discussion. Overall, it was a fun activity though!
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Mon Oct 17, 2022 2:42 am

12Oct22–16Oct22

French
12Oct22: During my commute, I listened to an episode of Ça s'explique and an episode of Transfert. After work, I did another page of Édito. It took around an hour: I made flashcards for some of the words I wanted to remember, read the exercises out loud, and answered both writing prompts. I posted one of my answers on iTalki. I think I need to speed up so it doesn't take me a year to finish this book! Or maybe one hour per page is reasonable? They're pretty dense pages after all.

I forgot a lot of grammar during my break from French, which is frustrating. However I think it'll come back to me the more writing I do.

13Oct22: I listened to an episode of Ça s’explique.

14Oct22: I listened to an episode of Peak TV. Then I did another page of Édito. I read one of the passages out loud and wasn't very happy with my pronunciation. Sometimes I miss doing Pimsleur lessons, but I don't think they're very helpful for pronunciation past the beginner stage.

15Oct22: I started listening to a podcast about Tolkein called Tolkein: l'écrivain monde. I also practiced pronouncing some sentences on Speechling and did Chapter 7 of Phonétique essentielle du français. I had planned to do Chapters 8 and 9 tonight as well, but my throat was a little too sore. Instead, I switched to Édito and finished two more pages of Unit 2.

16Oct22: Today I started reading one of the books I bought at the French bookstore in Barcelona, Petite sœur by Marie Nimier. This is the first book I’ve read in French that isn’t in ebook format, so I was a little nervous about not being able to look words up as quickly. However, the book is pretty easy to read! I read the first chapter, which was 30 pages, and only had to look up three words in order to understand.

Later, I did Chapters 8–10 of Phonétique essentielle du français. I've now completed the first section, which was called "Oralité, Rhythme et Intonation". I think I'll review the whole section before moving on to the rest of the book, which goes over all the vowels and consonants.

Thoughts
I think this was a really productive week! As I mentioned in another post, at the beginning of the week I made goals for myself and divided them into different sessions which I put on Google calendar. I managed to stick to the plan except for this weekend, because I underestimated how many other things I wanted to get done. I'm going to make a schedule for this upcoming week as well. This time, I won't plan quite as much for the weekend.

Writing
13Oct22: I continued outlining the contemporary fiction novella. I figured out four scenes, so now I just need to decide on the ending! :)

14Oct22: I finished outlining the novella, although I think the ending might be a little too short, which is a problem I've had with previous projects.

15Oct22: I watched a YouTube video about creating compelling characters and started brainstorming more ideas for the main character in the novella. I've always considered characters to be my weak point, so I ended this writing session feeling a bit frustrated. I'm worried that this main character is a little too bland.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Fri Oct 21, 2022 2:06 am

17Oct22–20Oct22

French
17Oct22: I read another two chapters of Petite sœur during my commute. I've read 50 pages already! Today I didn't look up the meaning of any words, but I did look up the pronunciation of a few. In particular, I always have trouble remembering when to pronounce "plus" as /ply/, /plyz/, or /plys/. Maybe I should make some Anki cards for it, because it's such a common word that I shouldn't need to look it up.

18Oct22: I read more of Petite sœur during my commute. Later, I did another two pages of Édito. I also made flashcards for how to pronounce "plus" like I mentioned above.

19Oct22: I continued reading Petite sœur during my commute. I’ve stopped taking the bus in the morning and now take the train instead, which means I can read without getting nauseous. Unfortunately this morning the train was so packed that I barely had room to hold the book in front of me. There was one scene that I couldn't quite understand, so I just read it over and over again since I couldn’t look up any words. On the commute home I was able to read more quickly.

Winter Plans
I just found out that I can take three weeks off at the end of the year. Last year I set myself an intensive speaking challenge for Spanish, but I gave up after only five hours of speaking. This year I think I'll try something else, but I'm not sure what. I'll probably try to make a lot of progress in Édito! I also want to take a lot of iTalki lessons, but I won't make a crazy goal like last year. Two or three lessons per week is a lot more realistic.

Writing
17Oct22: I started filling out a character sheet for the main character in the contemporary fiction novella. I think she's turning out to be more interesting, which is good!
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