Amanda's 2023 Log: Mostly French, Some German

[gsbod]

If you have time for an art gallery I recommend the Musée d'Orsay. I loved their exhibition of Van Gogh works when I was there. It should also score points with your train loving boyfriend as it's located in a former railway station.

While you're in London, you have to go to Foyle's bookshop on Charing Cross Road (not far from Tottenham Court Road tube station). They have a really extensive foreign language section, well worth a visit!

[jmar257]

We don't have any specific plans yet, so I'm open to suggestions for what to do.

Well it's hard to narrow it down to just one day of activities...but here's what I've done and liked:

• The Louvre - if you go, buy a skip-the-line ticket, do not waste time in line. You could easily spend the entire day (or entire months) in here
• Musée d'Orsay
• Eiffel Tower
• Notre Dame (still under construction sadly, but I love hanging out in the around around it and the right bank, and it's not far from the next thing on the list)
• Sainte Chappelle
• Palais Garnier
• Montmarte/Sacré Coeur (fun area to walk around in)
• Luxembourg Gardens
• Arc de Triomphe/Champs Elysée (personally don't care about shopping, but if you do Les Halles is a good spot for it too)
• Les Invalides (Napoleon's tomb, army museum, big church)
• Shakespeare and Company - historical English language bookshop, apparently a bunch of famous writers hung out there
• Gibert Joseph - went there because of this thread, bought several old Assimil books and a few fiction books. Highly recommend

I have not seen the Tour de l'horloge, Catacombs, Versailles (which is like 45 minutes outside the city, not worth it for a single day probably when there's so much in Paris proper) but want to. Also, sorry if this is information overload...but I love Paris. I also enjoyed Experimental Cocktail Bar last time I was there, but since it's your first time just find a café and sit on the street drinking wine in the evening instead of going to a cocktail bar that is similar to what you could find in any random big city. I suppose if I had to narrow it down for a day, I'd say go to the Louvre if you can get an early ticket (it'll be a lot of walking), go by the Eiffel Tower at least for a picture, then walk around Montmartre and Île de la Cité. Sainte Chappelle doesn't take long if you can fit it in as well.

[philomath]

While you're in London, you have to go to Foyle's bookshop on Charing Cross Road (not far from Tottenham Court Road tube station). They have a really extensive foreign language section, well worth a visit!

I love Foyles! That was actually one of my reasons for going back to London. When my boyfriend also expressed interest in the trip, I warned him that I plan on spending hours looking at books.

Well it's hard to narrow it down to just one day of activities...but here's what I've done and liked:
[...]
I suppose if I had to narrow it down for a day, I'd say go to the Louvre if you can get an early ticket (it'll be a lot of walking), go by the Eiffel Tower at least for a picture, then walk around Montmartre and Île de la Cité. Sainte Chappelle doesn't take long if you can fit it in as well.

Thank you!

[philomath]

09Feb23–12Feb23

I don't have much to report regarding language-learning or writing, but I made some interesting changes to my routine this week! I started waking up an hour earlier, at 6am instead of 7am, and actually exercised before work on two days. Usually I try to exercise after work, but sometimes I have class, or I have something else to do, or I'm too tired... I'd like to continue this schedule next week and get some writing done before work as well.

French
12Feb23: I had a 1-hour lesson with Marylène. It went well, but I was frustrated with my speaking again.

[philomath]

My master’s course is going well, but I’ve taken on too many projects at work. They’ll all be very good for my career, but they’re making it difficult to be productive after work. All I want to do is sit on the couch and do something mindless like knitting.

However, I’m also experiencing some language wanderlust. Specifically toward ASL. I’ve always been interested in learning ASL, but it doesn’t seem easy to learn without a teacher, which deterred me. (I know about Bill Vicars’ course, but even that seems really hard!) But recently, someone told me about an intro course run at a community center near me, and it looks pretty good! It starts at the end of May. That means I’d like to finish Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto before then.

Today I finally reviewed the 200+ Anki cards I had let accumulate. I remembered a lot more than I expected to, so I feel more motivated now! I just need to complete one unit of Teach Yourself per week. (I’m not going to worry about the other book for now.)

Has anyone here learned ASL or another sign language? I’d love to hear about how you did it!

[stell]

However, I’m also experiencing some language wanderlust. Specifically toward ASL. I’ve always been interested in learning ASL, but it doesn’t seem easy to learn without a teacher, which deterred me. (I know about Bill Vicars’ course, but even that seems really hard!) But recently, someone told me about an intro course run at a community center near me, and it looks pretty good! It starts at the end of May.

I’m also extremely interested in learning ASL someday!

[philomath]

18Feb23–20Feb23

French
I had a 1-hour lesson with Kevin. As usual, we didn't cover as many topics compared to my lessons with Marylène, since he spent so much time correcting me. But it was helpful and I ended the lesson feeling very motivated.

Afterward, I went through my French notebook and made flashcards for all the words I'd written down over the past two months. I made 254 cards!

Esperanto
This weekend I did Unit 9 of Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto. I liked this unit a lot because it explained how to discuss other languages you're learning. I'm feeling a lot more motivated to learn Esperanto this week. In my last post I mentioned wanting to finish the textbook by May so I can start ASL, but I'm not going to completely drop Esperanto; I do want to keep improving it. I like this language! I think the affixes and the "table words" are so fun.

Next weekend I'll start Unit 10. In the meantime, I need to pick up the pace with Anki reviews. I have over 300 new cards.

[philomath]

21Feb23–25Feb23

French
21Feb23: During my morning commute, I wrote a few paragraphs about my weekend. I ended up writing 403 words! I wrote down the phrases I had to look up, and later I made Anki cards for them.

22Feb23: I wrote a few sentences about the weather and posted them on iTalki for corrections.

23Feb23: I listened to an episode of French Expat.

24Feb23: I read a croissant recipe and made flashcards.

25Feb23: I went to a croissant-making class in French at the Alliance Française! Before the class, I was nervous that I would be the only non-native speaker. However it turned out that most of the people taking the class were learning French. When we did our introductions, I was relieved that I spoke pretty well compared to some of the attendees. And the class itself was a lot of fun! I had already made croissants before, but I got some good tips and I got to take a bunch home with me. When I got home, I recorded myself speaking for 10 minutes.

Esperanto
21Feb23: I decided to buy a physical copy of Teach Yourself Complete Esperanto. I'm excited for it to come in the mail so I can take notes in it. I also want to buy some little sticky notes so I can bookmark useful parts!

23Feb23: Teach Yourself arrived in the mail, and I reviewed the first three chapters, highlighting things that I want to remember better.

24Feb23: I listened to an episode of the podcast Usone Persone. I was able to understand more than I expected! Definitely not everything, but enough to enjoy the episode, which is what counts.

ASL
24Feb23: I decided to try Lesson 1 of Bill Vicars' course! As I mentioned before, I tried it once and found it too difficult. This time, I watched the first half of the lesson and kept replaying parts that were too fast. Afterward, I noticed that there was a vocabulary section with gifs or photos for the different signs. That's really helpful! I want to read through that section, practice the signs, and then watch Lesson 1 again sometime. Still, I don't want to study on my own and internalize a bunch of mistakes.

[lavengro]

I found Vicars' fingerspelling recognition practice page to be really helpful in increasing processing time when I was learning ASL: https://asl.ms/. Not signing, but fingerspellling is important to work on, particularly recognition. I eventually got comfortable with up to a maximum of 6 letters at fast speed, but could not manage "Deaf" speed.

[golyplot]

Has anyone here learned ASL or another sign language? I’d love to hear about how you did it!

I spent a year trying to learn ASL back in 2017 and eventually gave up in frustration. I think it is impossible to get to a high level without immersion. You can't just study it by reading and watching videos online the way you can with most spoken languages.