I watched the video for chapter 2 for French in Action, and began the audio exercises, and so far it doesn't feel like work. Assimil began to feel like work, and I would put off studying it. I also watched the first episode of Extra! in French, and I'm pretty certain I watched the same thing for Spanish in the past. I wonder if they have German equivalents...
Xenops I watched the video for chapter 2 for French in Action, and began the audio exercises, and so far it doesn't feel like work.
It might not feel like work now but it will I promise you. The Work Book and Audio Files are where the work is.
Work is not bad, only I promise you FIA will feel like work real soon.
And of course don't forget the exercises in the Textbook.
That said, enjoy the journey.
Thank you for the visit, Carmody! I appreciate it. I'm in the middle of the chapter two workbook now, and I'm feeling the work. xD
I found that setting time frames by which to complete things (like finish a chapter by such-and-such a time) is giving me stress rather than pushing me to complete tasks: so I'll instead dedicate time each day, and move as fast or slow as it happens.
Lately I've been enjoying Indila's music: I hope the lyrics aren't too naughty.
I'll get back to Assimil also: someone mentioned using it as a "graded reader", and if I have actual grammar education from FiA, then I can stand the slow pace of Assimil.
I logged in 2 hours of quality study time today. I'll keep a log of hours studied over the next year. I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 done with French in Action chapter two.
I've been investigating Cal Newport's methods of prioritizing time, and a recent method is "digital minimalism":http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/12/18/on-digital-minimalism/ And here's a video of him talking (he writes better than he talks, I think, but oh well).
I'm grateful to say that my wanderlust is pretty low key right now: the only language that is being consistently nagging is French. I did meet a girl that served in the military in Afghanistan, and at one point she was nearly fluent in Dari. I might learn the Arabic alphabet, and maybe some Pimsleur, but nothing more (that reminds me, I need to clock the French Pimsleur time too!). My year's goal is to reach B1/B2 level in French this year.
School starts again next week, so I have a little time left. I'm also scheduling in blocks in the week to work on my constructed language, Nansha. I might need to get a blog for that.
I finished chapter two of French in Action today, and started chapter three. I also finished Pimsleur unit/course 18. For my times so far since I've started counting (January 3rd):
Time: 4.2 hours
Thursdays are my constructed language time, and I used a list of Sanskrit roots for a meaning basis (so the meaning of the roots don't look exactly like English, a common newbie issue). So nice of someone to list it on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sanskrit_and_Persian_roots_in_Hindi
For French study time I have: 7.8 hours since the 3rd of this month. I'm about 1/2 to 2/3 through French in Action leçon three, and I finished Pimsleur unit 21 today. My pronunciation is getting better, but my R's are rather plosive. I should put up a recording here soon. I'm having a much easier time with nasal vowels.
I'm also on unit 3 of Pimsleur's Dari, and I'm working on memorizing ب & ا . I can't memorize the T, B, an P at the same time, or I will get confused, so I'll learn the similar letters individually and learn them on a separate basis. I've been using http://www.persianlanguageonline.com/ for the letters, even though the site focuses on Farsi.
For study time for French, I have: 9.5 hours. I'm almost done with Chapter three of French in Action, and I should finish it tomorrow. I believe I'm also on unit 22 for Pimsleur; lately I've been listening to them twice before moving on.