Amanda's 2024 Log: Spanish, French, and German

[philomath]

29Jan24–04Feb24

Spanish
Pronunciation: I continued doing Pimsleur Spanish III. I've now done Lessons 1-7, and I think my pronunciation has gotten better. My main struggles are over-pronouncing g and r sounds (especially in consonant clusters like rt, tr, etc.)

Listening: I listened to a few episodes of Radio Ambulante.

Speaking: I had two half-hour iTalki lessons. They were both fine, but I'm still looking for a great teacher. My main problem is that no one corrects my Spanish. The teacher on Saturday told me that he only heard two errors in my speech, but I know there were more than that! Even if they aren't outright mistakes, I would like a teacher who encourages me to rephrase things to sound more native, like my French teacher Kevin does.

Writing: I tried another conversation on Quazel (now rebranded as Univerbal), without using the speech-to-text feature. I’m still not a fan of the new tree. Right now, it keeps making me do job interviews, which aren't very interesting. I also finished the writing section of the first DELE B2 practice exam.

French
Nothing to report... I ought to practice speaking at least once a week so I don't lose the progress I made.

German
I hadn't studied German in a week, so first I caught up on my Anki reviews. Then I started working on Assimil again. This time, thanks to my Flip Klips, I can write out the lessons by hand. It takes a lot longer, but I think it really helps me learn.

I really want to finish Assimil. I realized that if I do one lesson per day, I will finish before my trip to Puerto Rico in mid-March. I made a tracker in my notebook to motivate myself.

[jackb]

Glad to hear that the Flip Klips helped!

I had something with my pronunciation in French and I found shadowing very helpful. Specifically, I memorized a couple of songs I really liked. It was a mistake, but it helped without any 'real' work. That kind of repetition isn't everyone'n thing, but I love it!

[philomath]

I completed the first DELE B2 practice exam in El Cronómetro! Here are my comments and scores:

Reading
Comments: This section wasn't too difficult. I had the most trouble with the last task, which was more grammar-focused. I did the four tasks in 50 minutes rather than the 70 minutes provided.
Score: 28/36

Listening
Comments: I thought this section was pretty fun. It was a little difficult listening while reading the questions at the same time.
Score: 31/36

Writing
Comments: This section was definitely more challenging than the reading and listening sections. I had forgotten a lot of vocabulary in Spanish and struggled with interference from French (e.g., writing "hopital" instead of "hospital"). I did all three tasks, even though you only need to pick two during the exam. For the first two tasks, I was too lazy to count how many words I had written, which resulted in my word counts being way off. During the third task, I made myself count them. After each task, I typed up my response and asked ChatGPT for corrections. Then I made some flashcards.
Score: ?

Speaking
Comments: This section was easier than the writing section, but I wasn't sure if I did a great job. My main issues were grammar (especially conditional sentences and the subjunctive) and lack of vocabulary. I felt like I was repeating myself too much since I had forgotten a lot of synonyms.
Score: ?

Overall I feel pretty good about this first practice exam, especially the reading and listening sections. Going forward, I definitely need to review grammar and increase my vocabulary. I have more iTalki lessons scheduled, but right now, writing practice might be more useful than speaking practice.

[philomath]

05Feb24–11Feb24

Spanish
DELE: I finished the first DELE B2 practice exam in El Cronómetro. I also started doing the exercises in Las Claves del Nuevo DELE B2. I like this book because it has other exercises in addition to practice exams.

Listening: I listened to several episodes of Hoy en El País and Radio Ambulante. I also watched the movie Ya No Estoy Aquí, which was pretty good.

Speaking: I had a 30-minute lesson with a new teacher, Carlos. Since it was our first lesson together, he asked me a bunch of questions to measure my level of Spanish. We ended up discussing my recent trip to Berlin. After the lesson, he sent me a short video and some questions to test my listening comprehension. I already booked another lesson with him for next weekend.

Grammar: Nothing this week, but I would like to continue reviewing The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice.

Vocabulary: I started making flashcards from this vocabulary list. I'd rather learn words by encountering them naturally, but time is of the essence.

Reading: I read up to page 33 of La sombra del viento before deciding to stop reading it. Back in the day I had read some of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's books for children and enjoyed them, but I just wasn't in the mood to read this book. There are other ones I'd rather read! Besides, reading news articles might benefit me more in terms of studying for the DELE exam.

Writing: I wrote a paragraph about a potential high school reunion (inspired by a prompt in Las Claves del Nuevo DELE B2) and a couple of paragraphs about the Super Bowl.

French
Nothing this week, except for reviewing my Anki cards.

German
I continued doing Assimil German. While useful, writing out each lesson by hand started to feel too tedious, so much so that I contemplated quitting Assimil. But I've made it so far, I can't quit now! I re-downloaded the audio on my phone and listened to the next lesson, 65, during my commute one day. Instead of writing out the lesson by hand, I just read it very closely and made Anki flashcards for words that seemed useful. It was nice to get it done with early in the day, but since I was on the bus, I couldn't repeat the audio out loud.

I need to reconsider my approach to studying German. I haven't been giving it much attention compared to Spanish and French, and I think that's why I'm not enjoying learning it very much. I think starting to speak or write more often would make me more motivated.

[philomath]

12Feb24–18Feb24

This was a busy week at work, so a slow week for language-learning.

Spanish
Listening: I watched La sociedad de la nieve with Spanish subtitles. Definitely the opposite of a light-hearted movie, but very good. I'm not used to voseo so I paid special attention to that.

Speaking: I had a one-hour lesson with a new iTalki teacher, Fran, who is from Spain. Out of all of the teachers I have tried so far, he seemed the most prepared to help me reach my goals. We decided we'll focus on general speaking and writing skills for now using the textbook Aula Internacional Plus 4, and then we'll switch to more specific exam prep later in the year.

Reading: I started reading Limpia by Alia Trabucco Zerán. I'm only 21 pages in, but it's good so far.

French
I practiced speaking to myself a little bit. Compared to December, I think my speaking ability has gotten worse. Oh well, I guess that's just the nature of switching between languages. I know I can improve my French level again when I want to.

German
I'm still struggling to enjoy German. I even bought the Assimil German "e-course" to see if I would like that better. The layout of the app is a little weird, but it's a little more convenient than carrying the book around. We'll see how it goes.

I also decided to try one month of LingQ, so I spent some time doing the lessons on there. It was nice to reinforce some of the words I had learned from Assimil.

[philomath]

19Feb24–25Feb24

Spanish
Speaking: On Wednesday, I had my second one-hour lesson with Fran. The first two thirds of the lesson weren't great; he had me do some textbook exercises that were way too easy. Finally we switched to speaking practice. He gave me a list of statements like, "Debería legalizarse la compra y uso de armas en este país", and I had to say whether I agreed or disagreed and why. That part of the lesson was a lot more useful, but he didn't give me any corrections, so I could've just practiced speaking on my own.

On Saturday, I had my second lesson with another iTalki teacher. Honestly, the lesson was pretty bad. He spent the whole time quizzing me on the imperfect tense. It was an hour-long lesson, and by the 20-minute mark I was wishing I'd be free sooner. Maybe he was thinking the same thing, because he ended the lesson after 30 minutes? I'm assuming he thought it was a 30-minute lesson, but I've never had a teacher make that mistake before. I was so happy to leave that I did not correct him. Needless to say, I will not be taking another lesson with him.

It's frustrating how much trouble I've had finding a Spanish teacher! I might take a break from iTalki for a bit and try to practice speaking on my own instead.

Grammar: I reviewed a couple more chapters in The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice.

Reading: I continued reading Limpia.

Writing: I wrote two paragraphs about our weekend trip to Cape Cod and a paragraph about going to the gym.

French
I had a 45-minute lesson with Kevin. He said my French is really good now.

German
I have not stayed on track with my Assimil schedule, so I'm only on Lesson 73. Next week, I will try to do one lesson per day during my commute.

So far I'm not a huge fan of LingQ, but I will keep trying it.

[DaveAgain]

It's frustrating how much trouble I've had finding a Spanish teacher! I might take a break from iTalki for a bit and try to practice speaking on my own instead.

I watched some of Mr Dearman's videos recently. He did a series of videos about the book How to Improve your foreign language immediately; from what he said that book might provide you with lots of self-talk exercises.

[tastyonions]

So far I'm not a huge fan of LingQ, but I will keep trying it.

I love the concept of LingQ but the interface is too unwieldy for me and not so aesthetically pleasing.

[philomath]

26Feb24–03Mar24

Lately work has been taking over my life! I'm leading two projects right now, which is exciting but also stressful. I worked late during the week and from 9-5 on the weekend as well. So I don't have many language-learning activities to report. But in a couple of weeks I'm going to Puerto Rico, which will hopefully be both relaxing as well as an opportunity to practice Spanish in real life!

Spanish
After so many disappointing iTalki lessons, I decided to try Lingoda. I signed up for a free trial and took a class in Level B2.1 called "Hablar sobre las ideas de los demás". There were two other students, both older than me but also from the US. The lesson category was Communication, but we didn't do as much speaking practice as I expected. Instead, the teacher asked us to write down our responses to various questions and then read them out loud. There are also lessons categorized as Speaking, so I'm curious how those are structured. Overall, the lesson was fun. It was nice being in a group setting for a change.

[philomath]

04Mar24–10Mar24

This week was another hectic week at work. I'm getting really tired of my job and would like to make a career change to something like data science, but I'm not sure the best way to go about it.

Spanish
On Wednesday, I had the day off from work, so I had not one but two Spanish lessons. One was my second trial lesson on Lingoda. The lesson category was "B2.1 Reading" and the topic was "Defectos humanos" (basically, the differences between humans and robots). Even though it was a "reading" lesson, we actually did more speaking than in my first lesson. We didn't have time to get through all of the lesson content, so I would like to finish it on my own sometime.

I also had an iTalki lesson with a new teacher, Alfonso. I decided it had been a mistake to book "general" lessons for Spanish, so this time I booked a conversational lesson. It went well! He took lots of notes during our lesson, which is exactly what I wanted.

On Saturday, I had another iTalki lesson with a teacher named Flor. She did a really good job leading the conversation, and she was very nice, but she didn't write down any notes for me. However the conversation was a lot of fun, so I'd like to keep taking lessons with her. I just need to get better at writing down things during the lesson so I can make flashcards later.

French
I had another lesson with Kevin, which was fun as always.

German
Nothing to report. I want to finish Assimil for the sake of finishing it, but I'm not feeling very motivated right now.