Sappho's log [French, Farsi, Latin]

[Sappho]

Welcome to my log!

The new year has come with all its fresh starts and new beginnings. For the forseeable future most of my language learning time I will focus on improving my heritage language Persian which is a very exciting thing to do.

I will stop 'learning' Latin for the time being, and just try to have some fun with it, talk to friends and listen/read what catches my interest. My active Latin is very far from being 'good' but I can enjoy the language and focus on other things for now.

The rest of my language learning time will be dedicated to French which I am also very excited about (also thanks to Qajar elites travelling to Europe/France there is a huge overlap in vocab! with Persian which is never a bad thing. ) I always wanted to try an immersion heavy apporach to learning a new language so at the moment I am listening/reading to

1) French by the nature method (made it to chapter 17), and
2) French in Action (finished the 7th video today), and got a copy of
3) Grammaire progressive (A2/B1)

French in Action is a lot of fun, I am so so about the nature method book, not explicitly memorizing vocab is a huge boon, the story of the book so far is very boring, the grammaire progressive seems to very well made and useful. We will see how it goes, maybe I will not finish the course and jump to native materials at some point, my Latin/English/Spanish should help at least a bit with comprehension.

I will aim at a roughly monthly update of the blog and probably mainly focus on a broader scope reflection of my language learning.

All the best to all of you!
Sappho

[Sappho]

It is time for my first update. :- )

Things are going well so far. Learning a language for me means building a lifelong relation with it. I don't 'need' to learn French, or Latin or Persian to get work and not starve next month. It is all about emotion and enabling new experiences. (This maybe a good moment to halt for a second and remind myself what a great language English is. The worlds it has opened me! From poetry to philosophy, novels and random gems found in the net. What treasures it has brought with it! I wouldn't miss them for the world.)

So with my new languages, French and Persian (Persian being old and new at once) the main question is - how to find out if I want to keep them, further build this relationship? Well, the proof is in the pudding (I hope I used that idiom right) but on a more mundane level - what can I do to keep my motivation at more constant over time?
I know I like to rush into things and be very enthusiastic at first (which is not a bad thing in my opinion) but it brings with it the danger of doing too much too soon. Also, I like to focus on a certain way of doing something/a special resource (which again not in itself bad) can lead to a lack of variety in the midterm.

So, long story short, for the time being I am trying out the following things:

1) Take a 1-week break from language learning every 6 weeks

2) Cap comprehensible input for Persian at 6h/week, find a good weekly cap for French

3) Think about increasing variety in the language learning process (This, like with all things, is a tradeoff of course. Too much variety leads to lack of progress, not enough variety kills motivation. However, if later in the year I write about listening to all the Harry Potter books in a row, you know I failed this part ;- ) )

Last week I finished my first 'mandatory language break', I will tell you in the next post how it went.

Thank you very much for stopping by and see you soon. :- )


Random book recommendation of the day:

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram, it brilliantly captures the experience of being second generation Iranian in a Western country - highly recommended