Ani's 2017 Log

[Peluche]

I think I need a pep talk and someone to remind me why I do this No study this week and I feel super guilty. Part of me wants to throw up my hands and pretend I never wanted to speak another language. I think maybe I ended up pressuring myself too much. I'm having a case of the "I'm not good enough"'s and thinking maybe I am only pretending I am capable of learning things.

Stop slacking off Ani. You only have 5 kids, and spend a meager 5 hours a day in the kitchen.
You should be competing in the olympics and be a Nobel laureate in physics and C2 in French and Russian.

[Ani]

You guys are amazing, super, and truly phenomenal. I re-read these last posts like 65 times over the last leg of our trip and the last few days while I recovered from the last leg of the trip. I really needed the encouragement, not just for languages, but for life. I think maybe I do expect a little too much from myself. Gemuse's post, while obviously a joke, was not far from the truth. I mean, unless they are adding yoga or pilates to the olympics, I don't have much chance there. (Maybe I could take up curling? ) and well... if not the Nobel Prize, at least some highly valuable papers and a PhD.. but at least a few more languages....

At any rate, we made it home. Lots of good memories and funny accidents -- the eclipse was amazing, of course. Then there was a soft sandy beach on a river in Idaho, Canada's Kootnay and Jasper National parks. (They were UH-Mazing..I definitely want to go back and spend more time there), Glacier National Park ( it was like mini-Alaska) , accidentally parking us in front of Athabasca glacier to sleep for the night ( but the glacial winds kept anyone from really sleeping), ran out of gas once in the middle of the wilderness and had to rely on the kindness of a stranger to get us back into civilization. Good times. The kids managed 3 years of history text books on audio book + a few other fiction and non fiction books, in addition to all the experiences and science lessons at the various visitors centers so it was useful for school as well.

Took us a few days to recover but now I am getting back to studying. I think I am going to sign up for Rype at least for a month, just waiting for a couple questions to be answered from their customer service. We took a trip up to a local state park for lunch today and I would have had a chance to talk to a Russian family.. if I had any Russian. So that inspired me to get going again. I'm sort of curious if the new Glossika updates will be very different or interesting to me.

[Tristano]

I think I need a pep talk and someone to remind me why I do this No study this week and I feel super guilty. Part of me wants to throw up my hands and pretend I never wanted to speak another language. I think maybe I ended up pressuring myself too much. I'm having a case of the "I'm not good enough"'s and thinking maybe I am only pretending I am capable of learning things.

Stop slacking off Ani. You only have 5 kids, and spend a meager 5 hours a day in the kitchen.
You should be competing in the olympics and be a Nobel laureate in physics and C2 in French and Russian.

Don't forget Georgian and Greenlandic and completing 10 Ironman 10 days in a row.

[Ani]

So, my mom staying with us, while nice, is having devastating results for my 2 year old's French. He isn't speaking any French these last couple weeks and he even messed up sur/sous today. I'm trying Rype, and seeing if he can take lessons with me and if that might help. I might also try and institute immersion hours again despite my mom being here... If this doesn't work, I'll need to quit and speak English with my son, and that will certainly mean the baby will be only speaking English too. We might be really close to the end of this French thing and it is breaking my heart. I was supposed to go stay with my dad in October, but I don't know right now. I miss my dad but school and French will fall apart. I feel like I have had so much disruption this year... I don't know if I can take it. (I also might be a teensy bit angry at my dad over something, and while I should just suck it up and let it go, it is making me less enthusiastic about all the work that goes into schlepping 5 kids across the country).

[Ani]

I just got a push notification that season 2 of мажор is available on Netflix! woot woot!


No time for a big update but a little one:
Rype isn't going to work out. The native speaking teacher pool is too small for me to feel comfortable even if I could try them all to see if I hit it off with one. It wasn't worth the work & cost. There were 14 teachers in the trial pool for French. 8 claim they are native speakers. Their bar for hiring quality people is pretty low, I'm thinking. I tried one non-native teacher and she didn't distinguish between any of the nasal sounds or even e and é... That was kind of awkward.

I did make myself try some more tutors on italki. I hate meeting new people. I mean, not really, but it's so stressful committing to talk to a complete stranger for a half or even a full hour. I don't even want to talk to my friends on the phone. I did like the tutors. I think one of the girls is going to work out. She did say she thought I was a native francophone from the email I wrote her before the lesson (question re: willingness to occasionally work with my toddler too), which was a super compliment... More to linguee than to me lol. I've been getting compliments on my writing lately and I think maybe I should not do so much editing and checking and looking up because the gap between what I write when I have time & internet, and what comes out of my mouth is kinda embarrassing. Or I just need to talk more to adults..Maybe that one.

And a final addendum to this "short" update.. I haven't figured out how to make decisions about tu/vous with male tutors or exchange partners. I think most people my age chat online in the informal, but where does Skype fall? I'd be inclined to start formal, but then as the female, does the decision/suggestion to tutoyer eventually fall to me? I'd expect to control the formality in English and keep it fairly high for in person conversation given that I'm a married woman, but I am not sure I am capable of similar manipulation in French. I had one (female) tutor who thought I (along with all Americans) was just so warm and open, just from giving my introduction. I am a nice person but that's not always the impression I want to give. I did manage a 30 minute discussion with a male tutor without either one of us conjugation a verb in the second person.. It was pretty impressive avoidance

[Peluche]

I don't even want to talk to my friends on the phone.

Can relate

[Cavesa]

And a final addendum to this "short" update.. I haven't figured out how to make decisions about tu/vous with male tutors or exchange partners. I think most people my age chat online in the informal, but where does Skype fall? I'd be inclined to start formal, but then as the female, does the decision/suggestion to tutoyer eventually fall to me? I'd expect to control the formality in English and keep it fairly high for in person conversation given that I'm a married woman, but I am not sure I am capable of similar manipulation in French. I had one (female) tutor who thought I (along with all Americans) was just so warm and open, just from giving my introduction. I am a nice person but that's not always the impression I want to give. I did manage a 30 minute discussion with a male tutor without either one of us conjugation a verb in the second person.. It was pretty impressive avoidance

This is always a bit tricky, as the internet has added so many options to our usual communication. Suddenly, we need to address people over skype, over fb individually or as a group, in the internet discussions, over emails, and so on. It can be complicated even without that.

In general, it is the woman, who can offer "tu", unless the man is old enough he could be her father. It can be tricky with other women too though. It would be very impolite to suggest tu to an older woman. But it would be very impolite to suggest she looks old, in some cases, what if she is younger than you In the situations related to teaching, the teacher is the socially more important person in the classical settings. But in services like Italki, it is more probably the client. I definitely feel it so, but perhaps someone feels otherwise.

Unless your male tutor is significantly older than you, I see no reason for him to offer you to tutoyer, Italki is simply not formal enough for him to be socially above you in my opinion. If he was your boss or your professor at university, it would be different.

There is nothing wrong about staying at "vous". It may not seem so from the usual explanation of the distinction for the anglophones, but "vous" doesn't prevent anyone from having warm, friendly conversations. Or close, friendly relationships. "Vous" doesn't have to go away even for people who have known each other for some time, it depends on the situation. It is not obligatory to ever switch to "tu". And I agree it is necessary to know how to sound formal and having some experience with it, which includes much more than just tu/vous.

As to being a married woman: this formal/informal scale is up to you, what you are comfortable about. In general, neither tu nor vous is inappropriate for a married person. It is definitely possible to use tu with lots of people of the opposite sex (such as coworkers, friends, neighbours) without it ever being considered out of line. And it is absolutely possible to flirt with someone while using vous. Just the tu/vous form of addressing the other person isn't any barrier per se. There are even stable couples who use "vous" occasionally, as a part of joking or role playing (not necessarily in a sexual way but possibly so). There are even rare couples, who choose not to switch to "tu" at all. I know one such couple, and they are a few years older than me. Just using tu is no reason for jealousy or guilt, unless there are other bits of behaviour added to it.

[Ani]

This is always a bit tricky, as the internet has added so many options to our usual communication. Suddenly, we need to address people over skype, over fb individually or as a group, in the internet discussions, over emails, and so on. It can be complicated even without that.

In general, it is the woman, who can offer "tu", unless the man is old enough he could be her father. It can be tricky with other women too though. It would be very impolite to suggest tu to an older woman. But it would be very impolite to suggest she looks old, in some cases, what if she is younger than you In the situations related to teaching, the teacher is the socially more important person in the classical settings. But in services like Italki, it is more probably the client. I definitely feel it so, but perhaps someone feels otherwise.

Unless your male tutor is significantly older than you, I see no reason for him to offer you to tutoyer, Italki is simply not formal enough for him to be socially above you in my opinion. If he was your boss or your professor at university, it would be different.

There is nothing wrong about staying at "vous". It may not seem so from the usual explanation of the distinction for the anglophones, but "vous" doesn't prevent anyone from having warm, friendly conversations. Or close, friendly relationships. "Vous" doesn't have to go away even for people who have known each other for some time, it depends on the situation. It is not obligatory to ever switch to "tu". And I agree it is necessary to know how to sound formal and having some experience with it, which includes much more than just tu/vous.

As to being a married woman: this formal/informal scale is up to you, what you are comfortable about. In general, neither tu nor vous is inappropriate for a married person. It is definitely possible to use tu with lots of people of the opposite sex (such as coworkers, friends, neighbours) without it ever being considered out of line. And it is absolutely possible to flirt with someone while using vous. Just the tu/vous form of addressing the other person isn't any barrier per se. There are even stable couples who use "vous" occasionally, as a part of joking or role playing (not necessarily in a sexual way but possibly so). There are even rare couples, who choose not to switch to "tu" at all. I know one such couple, and they are a few years older than me. Just using tu is no reason for jealousy or guilt, unless there are other bits of behaviour added to it.

This whole post is really really helpful, Cavesa. Thanks for taking the time to write it. That clears up so many of the things I was thinking about but not confident on.

[Ani]

Not really anything to report language wise. I've been screwing around way too much lately. October 1st today. I'm going to track hours for this month, direct study only. Reading and listening optional bonus but not counted toward time. I'm committing to 50h French and 10h Russian. Boom.

In the past this would have been easy, but lately, well... It will be good for me to get back in the routine..

[Ani]

Day 3.. I still have time tonight but I am only 1.5 hours into French and 0 hours into Russian Not doing super hot so far but I am going to try and keep posting my time to publicly shame myself into working
(It's ok. I like the work and I like all of you guys so it is really just healthy accountability )

Sunday we had DD's birthday party with her friends and I completely crashed afterwards so no studying got done. That was the real challenge to my average. I'm going to try to get in some Russian and another hour of French tonight which should start to even me out.

Last night I got involved in a situation where *someone was wrong on the internet*. I tried so hard not to get involved but I couldn't resist and then I had to write a few more posts (with escalating levels of snark) after (as expected) I was jumped all over for correcting someone's facts and suggesting further reading.. Anyway, what I am trying to say here is that I really really love this forum. I really love that it is ok to speak up here if someone has their facts wrong and it is not considered rude to offer ideas for further learning because we are a community of people who enjoy learning in general. Of course sometimes we reach an impasse due to world view personal beliefs, and that's totally fine with me. I personally put a huge value on freedom of conscience. To respect people's fundamental differences is completely different than the popular societal construct where we are supposed to sit and politely listen to half-a$$ed poorly thought out ideas without challenging or correcting anything because "we all believe different things"... In the sciences no less...