MandarinThe mandarin language exchange requests just keep pouring in! I'm a little spoilt for choice now, but my mandarin has deteriorated so badly that it might as well be non-existent. Honestly, it is non-existent. I have decided that 3 language exchange partners for a language which I'd parted is quite enough. So I'm just going to refuse anyone else, regardless of how much sympathy I have for them. I'm not doing anything, even the anki deck for mandarin I'm only doing sporadically. This is because the Korean deck takes up all my time. I need better time management.
KoreanThis week's lesson got side tracked by me because I asked my teacher to review the list of verbs I'm learning and to point out if any of them are irregular. I am not seeing any progress in Korean. It is really very discouraging to feel that you are putting in a ton of work, but that I'm just bouncing words off my head. Nothing seems to penetrate my hard head.
I struggle to make sentences, I struggle with pronunciation, and frankly I struggle with everything. Even simple sentences are a pain.
No point moaning about it, since it is all just grist for the mill and will eventually get me to the point of actually speaking. I've decided I really need to start speaking during my language exchanges, even if it is just the canned sentences which I know. I've also managed to sign up a 3rd person for language exchanges in Korean. Like mandarin, there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of people to talk to (if I could talk).
I've topped 100 films in Korean, doesn't seem to have done a lot of good for me. I can pick out any more words than before. I think I need to start reading more if I'm ever going to start to understand. My vocabulary is very, very small and certainly isn't sufficient to understand any k-drama. But reading is sooooooo painfully slow!
I need better time management.
ItalianDidn't do any LE in Italian, either my partners bailed or I did. I have done a couple dozen pages of my gigantic Italian book about Alexander the Great. I'm almost at the end of book one. It is a multiple volume book, so three books in one tome.
FrenchDidn't get a chance to speak in French this week. So nothing happened in French.
General StuffMost of this week I have felt like Sisyphus. But hoping that just continuing to plug away at Korean and Mandarin will let me see some kind of improvement. I was interested in how long it takes people outside of Korea to learn Korean.
From the 90 day Korean website:
It takes 3 months (90 days) to learn enough Korean to have a 3-minute conversation in Korean if you study for 7-10 hours per week. After 1 year of studying at this pace, you can become conversationally fluent.
I call bollocks. I've been doing an hour per day for almost 1 year now, and I can't have a 3-second conversation.
Rocket Languages thinks that to get to a B2 level.
equates to a total of between 1,000 and 1,200 hours.
Can't call bollocks yet, since I've probably only done about 500+ hours (not counting watching k-dramas) but it doesn't seem likely to me that I'll be at B2 level after another 500 hours. But never say never.