An Opsimath's Log: DA, LA, NL, FR

[Elsa Maria]

September was a lost month, and not just for languages. I have a chronic health condition and it flared in a big way. I am fine now. Onward...

The first thing I want to do here is organize and the clean up the Danish resources thread, since I had promised to take that on. I'm looking forward to the task!

Danish Resources

[Elsa Maria]

I just signed up to participate in a readathon that starts tomorrow. It's the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon, and I will be reading in English, Dutch, Latin, Danish and French. I am way too old to stay awake for 24 hours - but it will be fun just to play along. And to give myself the indulgent gift of reading all day long. I'll play along on Twitter with the account that I use for the 6WC, and I'll post my final page/hour counts here. (ETA 02 January 2022: I forgot to post the final page/hour counts and now I don't remember what they were. But they were unimpressive - that much I do remember!)

https://deweysreadathon.wordpress.com/

And I need to start thinking about the 6WC! I might give Faroese a go.
(ETA 02 January 2022. I chose French instead. Alas, I fizzled out on tracking in December. I came in at #13 for Target Score and #12 for Total Score.)

[Elsa Maria]

My languages have been going OK. I had an all-consuming project January through March, and I still managed to do my daily 30 minutes most days.

Here is a brief update:

DANISH
I took a round of lessons (8) with my long-term Danish tutor. It was nice to speak Danish again, and it knocked the rust off.
I'm pretty sure that I will sign up for the Super Challenge for Danish. It is probably exactly what I need to reach C1 in reading and listening.

DUTCH
I'm continuing with a weekly Dutch language exchange, and I took some italki lessons.
I am tempted to do a half challenge for the Super Challenge.

I have so many gaps in both languages, and I need to back up a bit and fill in the foundations. I skim-read through my log yesterday, and I never did most of the things that I said I was going to do. I think I did some other things instead, though

LATIN
Right now, I am pondering what to do about Latin. I had to drop my class in January because of the All-Consuming-Project. I don't think I want to retake the same level next year. I'll probably just go back to using LLPSI on my own.

FRENCH
French is actually getting most of my attention right now. I just signed up for the 6WC, and I can't wait. I love that challenge!

POLISH
I've brought Polish back into my routine. I've been wanting to study Polish for so long. Needs and circumstances keep pushing it aside, but I'm determined to at least have it simmer along in a discovery phase. That way, I will have some fundamentals in place whenever I am ready to really dive into it.

[Elsa Maria]

Five Months Later:
I'm going to back to a previous name for my log - "An Opsimath's Log" because I like it and it fits me

My life has changed a lot since my last post. My husband and I are both retired now, all the kids are out of the house (for the moment). And we moved. I didn't drop my languages over the summer, but I didn't focus on them either. I lost the habit of tracking, so I tanked on the August 6WC and have no idea where I would stand on the 365 Day Challenge.

I stopped to ask myself if languages are still the thing that I want to spend my time on. I could just maintain Danish and call it good. At least for now, the answer is YES to language study. And I really do have the time for it! So now what?

I recently had a Danish friend visit me. Whenever it was just the two of us, we conversed in Danish. I had not spoken any Danish in months, and it was a bit rough for me in the beginning. But I was doing OK by the end of the ten days. My motivation is high again, and I would like to find a new tutor. I want a tutor who (1) will push me out of my comfort zone and (2) correct my writing. I'm going to try out some new tutors but I'm also going to do a detailed self-assessment. I'll think about how I can evaluate myself and share my results here.

DUTCH
I'm still doing a weekly exchange with Dutch most weeks, but I should do a lot more between those sessions.
Resources: my grammar texts, sprookjes, and YouTube videos.

LATIN
Latin is in review / consolidation / maintenance mode.
Resources: Just LLPSI right now.

FRENCH
French is still in the discovery phase, but I am no longer forcing my interest in French. So that's good. I'm often tempted to drop it for Spanish but I'm resisting that urge.
Resources: French by the Nature Method (Ayan Academy), a second pass through Language Transfer, and Pimsleur Level 2.

[Elsa Maria]

I put in 3h44 minutes today. That won't last and neither will daily log updates

Recap:
I started using ATracker again, which I love. If I can ever figure out how to upload photos here, I'd post screenshots.

My mornings are spent with books. It is normal for me to put in multiple hours in the morning, but most of my reading is in my native language and I'm not planning to change that. I'm too attached to reading 75+ books per year and I have some long-term reading projects that I work on. My Read-Around-The-World project would probably interest some people here. I can write more about that later.

1h16m
Today started with Gift by Tove Ditlevsen. This is the third volume of her memoirs. It is called The Copenhagen Trilogy in English. I did a reread of yesterday's chapter, and I read part of the next chapter. Without lookups, my comprehension is much higher than gist but lower than complete. I can read this with ease and can usually make good guesses from context. I highlight the words that I think I should know (because I've seen them a zillion times) and also the words that I don't know. And then I rarely go back to those highlighted words. I'd like to change that

45m
I had my weekly Dutch-English LE. I feel bad that I put so little time into Dutch outside of that LE, but my friend is very patient. I'm going to try to do better.

20m
I reviewed some very basic French sentences and did a little scriptorium.

--
Everything after that was listening: learner podcasts in Dutch, Ayan Academy French, and native Danish podcasts. We are renovating a house - in theory, I will have hours of listening time available almost every day.