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

[garyb]

I struggled with prepositions because I was thinking of French. For example, I kept writing "a Barcelona" when I meant "en Barcelona".

I still make this mistake pretty often in Spanish, since I learnt it after French and Italian, and it's frustrating! The use of "a" and "en" in Spanish is closer to English than French, which seems like a good thing but "a" is quite engrained when I'm in Romance language mode.

[philomath]

14Jul22–17Jul22

Spanish
15Jul22: I spent 30 minutes writing in my journal about investing in the stock market.

16Jul22: I had a 30-minute iTalki lesson with a new teacher. I spoke much better than last time, although I still made some mistakes with prepositions. Overall, it was a decent lesson, but I don't think I'll book another one with that teacher: we just didn't "click" personality-wise.

17Jul22: I had a 30-minute iTalki lesson with a different teacher. I don't think I'll book another lesson with her either. I've been having bad luck with teachers! Or perhaps I'm being too picky. I found two more teachers whose profiles interest me, but unfortunately I'll be busy moving apartments for the rest of the month.

French
14Jul22: During my commute, I continued reading Je te plumerai la tête and reviewed my Anki cards. I’ve been terrible at keeping up with the reviews lately! After work, I read Je te plumerai la tête for another hour or two.

15Jul22: More reading and Anki reviews.

17Jul22: I continued reading Je te plumerai la tête. I've now read 60% of the book.

[philomath]

18Jul22–19Jul22

Spanish
18Jul22: I started listening to an episode of Quémese después de escuchar.

19Jul22: I finished yesterday's episode.

French
18Jul22: I continued reading Je te plumerai la tête. The book got really suspenseful; I couldn't put it down! I read around 120 pages after getting home from work. Later, I wrote a couple of paragraphs about a short story I'm working on.

19Jul22: I finished reading Je te plumerai la tête! I've now read 21 "books" for the Super Challenge, so I can take a little break without falling behind. I'd like to go through the words I highlighted in both this book and Phobos and make flashcards for the ones I want to remember.

[philomath]

20Jul22–21Jul22

French
20Jul22: During my commute, I listened to an episode of InnerFrench. Later, I went through all the words I highlighted in Phobos and made flashcards. It took me a couple of hours because there were around 200 highlights, but I only ended up making 51 flashcards. One exciting thing was that I noticed several phrases which I also remembered highlighting in Je te plumerai la tête: un rabat-joie, songer, sur les nerfs, tant pis, etc.

I also received a textbook which I had ordered: Phonétique essentielle du français A1/A2. I've been wanting to improve my pronunciation lately, and I'm looking forward to giving this textbook a try. The A1/A2 level might be too easy, but I want to make sure I have a good foundation. Unfortunately I'm moving apartments and packed my external CD drive somewhere, so I can't start the exercises yet.

Lastly, another exciting discovery: after over two and a half years of studying French, I finally realized that I can type accents using the US International keyboard on my Surface. Previously I had tried the French keyboard layout and couldn't stand it, so I had been typing everything in https://french.typeit.org/. The US International keyboard is a game-changer!

[philomath]

22Jul22–24Jul22

Spanish
22Jul22: I began reading El tiempo entre costuras. I read it for the first time in 2018 and had been wanting to reread it. Now seemed like the perfect time, since I’m ahead in the Super Challenge and going to Spain next month!

I like rereading books in English, and it’s interesting doing so in Spanish. When I reread the first chapter, I remembered exactly where I was the first time I read it and which words I had looked up. On one hand, I feel a sense of progress because now I know what those words mean without having to look them up again. But on the other hand, maybe I wouldn't recognize them in a different context.

Nothing else to report as I spent the whole weekend moving apartments. There's still a lot to unpack, but all of my furniture is now at the new place!

[philomath]

25Jul22–28Jul22

Spanish
25Jul22: I read Chapter 2 of El tiempo entre costuras.

26Jul22: I read Chapter 3 of El tiempo entre costuras. I also scheduled two iTalki lessons with two teachers who I've never met before. I really want to take more lessons before I leave for Spain on August 26. I guess I'll need to start having lessons after work.

27Jul22: Read Chapters 4 and 5.

28Jul22: Read Chapter 6. I'm still using the Kindle app, but instead of highlighting words I don't know, I've been highlighting words that I want to move from my passive vocabulary to my active vocabulary. During my long break from Spanish, my active vocabulary shrunk a lot.

French
26Jul22: I overheard two women speaking French at work and tried to eavesdrop a bit. They both had very strong Québécois accents. I had been listening to the podcast Ça s'explique because I wanted to get better at understanding Québécois, but these women were much harder to understand. It actually took me a moment to realize they were speaking French. Clearly I need to find a better source of Québécois listening practice than Ça s'explique!

[philomath]

29Jul22–31Jul22

Spanish
31Jul22: I had a 30-minute iTalki lesson. Despite all the reading practice I did last week, my speaking skills weren't great. I kept confusing Spanish with French and making grammatical mistakes. In August I'm going to try writing in Spanish every day; we'll see if that improves my speaking as well.

French
29Jul22: I listened to Transfert for 20 minutes.

[philomath]

July Results

This month I wanted to maintain Spanish and French so I could focus on my writing projects. However, I actually accomplished more than I expected: I had four Spanish lessons and read around 500 pages in French. Since I didn't dedicate as much time to languages, I was also more productive in other areas of my life. For example, I finally started going to the gym and lifting weights again.

Spanish
[X] Have two iTalki lessons. (I had four, for a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes.)
[ ] Spend 1 hour reviewing verb conjugations. (I will adjust this goal if 1 hour is not enough.) (Nope... I completely forgot about this goal.)
[X] Keep up with Anki reviews.

French
[ ] Have two iTalki lessons. (I only had one, which was 45 minutes.)
[ ] Keep up with Anki reviews.
[X] Finish reading Phobos.
[X] Read another 250 pages to stay on track for the Super Challenge. (I read all of Je te plumerai la tête by Claire Mazard.)

[philomath]

August Goals

At the end of August, I'm going to Spain! Naturally I want to focus on Spanish this month. I've set a very high goal for iTalki lessons, which may be difficult to accomplish since I haven't found a new iTalki teacher. I'm going to try to complete it though.

Spanish
[ ] Have ten iTalki lessons.
[ ] Keep up with Anki reviews.
[ ] Finish reading El tiempo entre costuras.
[ ] Write one journal entry every day.

French
[ ] Keep up with Anki reviews.

[philomath]

01Aug22

Spanish
During my morning commute, I wrote about going to Ikea and made flashcards for the words that I had to look up. I also listened to an episode of El Hilo about the recent heat waves. During my evening commute, I listened to an episode of Hoy en EL PAÍS.

Exciting news: I found two more iTalki teachers who seem promising. Both of them reached out to me after I booked the lesson to ask about my current level and goals. One of them sent me a list of questions she likes to discuss during the first lesson, and the other one sent me a list of newspapers and podcasts he likes to use for conversational topics. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but maybe I’ve finally found some long-term teachers!

French
Spent 20 minutes reviewing my Anki flashcards.