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

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

Postby philomath » Sun Apr 10, 2022 9:36 pm

05Apr22–10Apr22

French
05Apr22: I did more Kwiziq and listened to 20 minutes of Peak TV.

06Apr22: I read an article from Slate France about the TV show Bridgerton, which I've heard of but haven't seen. I made flashcards for some phrases that seemed useful, and then I wrote 150 words.

Finally, I watched a few videos from the YouTuber imkaylaroy, who's from Quebec. I watch her videos from time to time, so I don't have much trouble understanding her accent anymore.

08Apr22: More Kwiziq.

09Apr22: More Kwiziq. I finished the A1 level!

10Apr22: I had a 60-minute lesson with a new teacher, who I will call Teacher E to continue this list. For the first half hour, we talked about my interests, and then we went through a couple of pages from a textbook. She corrected my pronunciation more than any other teacher I've had, which I appreciated. Also at the end she gave me some homework! So overall it was a very good lesson.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Fri Apr 15, 2022 12:00 pm

11Apr22–14Apr22

French
11Apr22: I reviewed ~50 sentences on Speechling. For each sentence, I recorded myself pronouncing the word, listened to the native speaker's recording, and then recorded myself again. Lately it seems like my pronunciation has gotten a lot better, but during my last iTalki lesson I thought my intonation wasn't quite right, maybe because I was trying to speak quickly. Anyway Speechling has been very useful, even without getting corrections from a native speaker. (Though I should probably submit more sentences for corrections.)

After work, I listened to an episode of Peak TV and tried to look up all of the words I didn't know. Finally I did a few more quizzes on Kwiziq. I've already done 139 quizzes this month. Je suis vraiment accro !

12Apr22: I was very busy this day because of work, but I managed to sneak in a bit of Kwiziq. I also spent some time looking at French coursebooks, specifically Édito and Tendances. I never planned on using a coursebook for French, but I think it would be nice to have more structure in my learning. I settled on Édito, and I decided to skip the A2 book, which looked too easy, and start with B1.

13Apr22: I listened to Peak TV and did some more quizzes on Kwiziq.

14Apr22: I listened to an episode of the podcast Sixième Science, which was pretty good. I'm glad I've found a science podcast in French. I also started working my way through Édito B1. There are 12 units, and I completed the first page of Unit 1. It took me longer than I expected because I made flashcards for some of the words in the reading, and then I wrote out a response to the eight questions about the reading. I think I'll aim to do one page per day, except for the weekends when maybe I can do more.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Thu Apr 21, 2022 12:07 pm

15Apr22–20Apr22

French
15Apr22: I listened to Peak TV for 30 minutes.

17Apr22: I did Édito Unit 1, Part B. I also reviewed a few sentences on Speechling.

18Apr22: I did Édito Unit 1, Part C. I learned a lot of cooking-related vocab, which was nice because I like to cook. Then I did the first grammar section, which introduced the subjunctive. I also did some more quizzes on Kwiziq.

19Apr22: I did the first vocabulary section of Édito Unit 1. I rushed through it a bit because I didn’t feel like memorizing lists of words. I also did some more quizzes on Kwiziq.

20Apr22: During my commute I read three chapters of La familia grande while listening to the audiobook. I’m not a huge fan of it so far, but it's pretty short so I might as well finish it. I didn’t bother looking up unknown words unless I was really curious. I think extensive reading like this is still helping reinforce words that I learned elsewhere, or at least that's what I hope.

Lately I've gotten tired of iTalki lessons, so I moved my next one from April 23rd to April 30th. I felt like I was spending each lesson learning vocabulary, which I can do on my own time. Maybe having a little break from lessons will be good though. I still want to practice speaking by myself and will use the exercises in Édito as prompts.

Italian
I guess I've dropped Italian again. It's a lot easier to focus on just one language, and I don't have a trip to Italy planned this year, so Italian just isn't a priority. Hopefully I will go to Italy in 2023, but in the meantime I'm really looking forward to my travel plans in 2022 (Montreal, Barcelona, and potentially Mexico City!). Anyway, based on my experience with Italian so far, I think I could learn it pretty quickly before traveling. I'm still going to review my Anki flashcards and maybe I can find some way to incorporate a little bit of Italian into my routine. I don't want to completely forget it after all.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Fri Apr 22, 2022 12:49 pm

Ever since I resumed reading La familia grande, I've been really motivated to read more in French! Part of this increase in motivation is because someone who I follow on Instagram is reading The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan in French. That was one of my favorite books when I was younger, and there are five books in the series, which is a lot of reading material! For the past few years I've been determined not to read any books in translation, but maybe that's a silly rule. After all, back in the day I read the first three Harry Potter books in Spanish, and I think that really helped me move on to more difficult books.

Here are some of the books on my French to-read list:
  • Le Voleur de foudre and the other books in the series, all by Rick Riordan
  • Phobos by Victor Dixen. I'm not sure if it's any good, but it was recommended by one of the French YouTubers who I follow. The genre is young adult and I believe the concept is basically "teen dating show in space" :lol:
  • Bonjour tristesse by Françoise Pagan
  • Vingt mille lieues sous les mers by Jules Verne

That would count for at least 50 “books” in the Super Challenge, which makes me wonder if I should sign up...
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby jackb » Sat Apr 23, 2022 1:20 pm

If you want to stick to your initial rule, you could try D' un monde à l'Autre or La Passe-Miroir. Both are the initial tomes of beloved 'YA' series. So many books, so little time!!
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby galaxyrocker » Sat Apr 23, 2022 3:11 pm

philomath wrote: For the past few years I've been determined not to read any books in translation, but maybe that's a silly rule.


Just going to say, it's not a silly rule. I actually follow a similar rule in Irish and am thinking of adapting it to French too (so far, just the books I've been interested in haven't been translations). I'm sure my reasons are completely different, but I think it's super worthwhile to read stuff that was written within the literary tradition of the language you're learning. That said, I do leave a little leeway if the translation comes from a language other than one I can read. So I might turn to Don Quixote in Irish or French one day, but I wouldn't read books that were originally published in English in French.

It's nice to see others that have this rule or have thought about it at least. I think too many (though maybe it's just the Irish communities) hype up translations too much and lose sight of what's in the language already.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby Herodotean » Sat Apr 23, 2022 5:46 pm

galaxyrocker wrote:
philomath wrote: For the past few years I've been determined not to read any books in translation, but maybe that's a silly rule.

Just going to say, it's not a silly rule. I actually follow a similar rule in Irish and am thinking of adapting it to French too (so far, just the books I've been interested in haven't been translations). I'm sure my reasons are completely different, but I think it's super worthwhile to read stuff that was written within the literary tradition of the language you're learning. That said, I do leave a little leeway if the translation comes from a language other than one I can read. So I might turn to Don Quixote in Irish or French one day, but I wouldn't read books that were originally published in English in French.

That's my approach as well. Since my primary motivation for learning languages is to read literature in the original, I'm just not that interested in translations. That's largely why reading English books in a target language (like Harry Potter) has always failed for me: if I can read the original in English, why should I bother reading a translation? That would mean developing my ability to avoid translations by . . . reading a translation. (More power to everyone for whom the Harry Potter method has worked, though!) I do read translations, however, in the following circumstances: (1) when I need to teach a work to my students and they cannot read the original, since it would take longer and be less efficient for me to read the original while they read a translation; and (2) when a work was originally written in a language that I cannot read and/or have no intention of learning. I'm afraid that I am doomed to always read translations of Russian literature, as much as that grieves me. I suppose I consider translations of the Bible a special case, since many of them are great works of literature in their own right and have great cultural significance.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Sun Apr 24, 2022 5:39 pm

jackb wrote:If you want to stick to your initial rule, you could try D' un monde à l'Autre or La Passe-Miroir. Both are the initial tomes of beloved 'YA' series. So many books, so little time!!

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll check out D' un monde à l'Autre. I tried La Passe-Miroir but I couldn't get into it.

Herodotean wrote:
galaxyrocker wrote:
philomath wrote: For the past few years I've been determined not to read any books in translation, but maybe that's a silly rule.

Just going to say, it's not a silly rule. I actually follow a similar rule in Irish and am thinking of adapting it to French too (so far, just the books I've been interested in haven't been translations). I'm sure my reasons are completely different, but I think it's super worthwhile to read stuff that was written within the literary tradition of the language you're learning. That said, I do leave a little leeway if the translation comes from a language other than one I can read. So I might turn to Don Quixote in Irish or French one day, but I wouldn't read books that were originally published in English in French.

That's my approach as well. Since my primary motivation for learning languages is to read literature in the original, I'm just not that interested in translations. That's largely why reading English books in a target language (like Harry Potter) has always failed for me: if I can read the original in English, why should I bother reading a translation? That would mean developing my ability to avoid translations by . . . reading a translation. (More power to everyone for whom the Harry Potter method has worked, though!) I do read translations, however, in the following circumstances: (1) when I need to teach a work to my students and they cannot read the original, since it would take longer and be less efficient for me to read the original while they read a translation; and (2) when a work was originally written in a language that I cannot read and/or have no intention of learning. I'm afraid that I am doomed to always read translations of Russian literature, as much as that grieves me. I suppose I consider translations of the Bible a special case, since many of them are great works of literature in their own right and have great cultural significance.

I have mixed feelings about translations, but I think I'll keep sticking to my "no translations" rule. However I might make an exception for Le voleur de foudre because I really want to reread it (I'm a big fan of rereading my favorite books). So I might as well read it in French and try to learn something from it!
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby philomath » Thu Apr 28, 2022 11:57 am

21Apr22–27Apr22

Spanish
27Apr22: I had a bit of fun with Spanish today: my boyfriend found an article from Business Insider España about the use of bitcoin in El Salvador, and he asked me what it said. I ended up translating the whole thing for him. It was nice that I could be useful (although he could've just pasted the whole thing into Google Translate :lol:).

French
21Apr22–24Apr22: I didn’t do much except review my Anki flashcards.

25Apr22: I did some more quizzes on Kwiziq and reached 60% in the A2 level. I also read two more chapters of La familia grande while listening to the audiobook.

26Apr22: More Kwiziq. Also, I registered for the Six Week Challenge and the Super Challenge! I considered signing up with both Spanish and French, but in the end I chose French. I've never tried the Super Challenge before, so I'm excited.

27Apr22: I did another section of Édito Unit 1. It's taking me a lot longer to finish Unit 1 than I originally thought. It's been so long since I used a coursebook like this, and I'm worried that I'm being too much of a perfectionist.
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Re: Amanda's 2022 Log: Spanish, French, and Italian

Postby BeaP » Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:32 pm

philomath wrote:It's taking me a lot longer to finish Unit 1 than I originally thought. It's been so long since I used a coursebook like this, and I'm worried that I'm being too much of a perfectionist.

This happens to me all the time. What I'm trying to do now is move on after I've examined the texts and done all the exercises. I write in books and also use several highlighters. (colour 1: words important for the topic, colour 2: linking words, colour 3: collocations, colour 4: new grammar). When I finish the whole book, I can still decide to do a review from the beginning (or not). If I do it, it'll be much quicker with all those solutions, definitions and explanations written in, important new words highlighted. I might circle with red the things I still can't learn during the second round for a possible third round. I've recently looked through some lower level textbooks I've completed this way and it took me roughly 3 hours to work through a unit (workbook included). If you don't force things, let those things stick that want to stick and come back later to learn the rest, it might be a good idea. (Just my two cents. I'm still experimenting as well.)
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