French, Japanese and Who Knows What Else

[Sarafina]

I have a lesson early tomorrow morning.

I have to review my knowledge of the subjunctive and prepare a little bit in advance of the discussion about youth and health.

[Sarafina]

Honestly my Italki tutor is awesome. I thought she would be mad that I missed the lesson on Wednesday but she was understanding and sympathetic and even extended the lesson for 30 minutes more to compensate. I love having lessons with her. It's so unbelievably helpful.

I wish my French teachers at school were like her. In the summer holidays, I can afford to work at least 20 hours a week and can spend more money for lessons. I am going to try to have daily lessons with her throughout the summer holidays.

I love French but I dread my French lessons at school. One of these days I am going to file a complaint but I can't even report him because I don't trust the school to keep me anonymous and I know that he'll be petty enough to take it out on me by marking me harshly in my oral exam. Everyone is so charmed by him but I find him to be so unprofessional.

For example at the start of the lesson he'll ask what we've last done. He genuinely forgets what we've done last lesson. He sets homework and never collects it. He doesn't appear to follow a plan. He'll spend 10 minutes going through some textbook activities then he'll rant about something irrelevant for the reminder of lesson. He acts like a caricature of a Starbucks socialist. I hate how the class laps it up.

Maybe I should done ab initio Chinese or Japanese instead. The teachers of those languages seem to be more thoroughly and helpful and hardworking. They offer conversation class throughout the year. I've only had like max 4 conversation class since I've been at this school.

I can't wait until I leave this school and IB.

[Sarafina]

I've been sleeping more. I created a French plan on Excel to help to keep me on track and accountable. Japanese is on the back burner. I regret not being productive when I had free time at the beginning of year 12 or even the holidays.

In one of the study rooms, I overheard one girl teaching her friends some Korean. She sounded really good and had been self-learning it for the last 2-3 years. In that moment I realised that I could have gone a lot more with Japanese. After all my coursework is done, I am hoping to devote at least 1 hour a day towards learning Japanese.

[Sarafina]

I'm on track with my coursework. It's not quite finished yet but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My routine for Japanese is simply listen to an episode of Japanesepod101 in the morning on the bus. I have a new phone with better audio. Then with I get homework- hand write any relevant Japanese phrases that I find useful to note down (which should only take maximum 10-20 minutes) and then add all the Japanese sentences to Anki (which can be done in little more than a minute). On the bus or early in the morning I can also being learning common 100 words deck on Japanesepod101

Afterwards to re-watch at least more than 10 minutes of Terrace House and Haikyuu with the Japanese subtitles on. Then add unknown words to Renshuu to review. I chose Renshuu over Anki because of the audio that automatically comes when you add the word.The voice isn't too robotic and doesn't require me downloading an add-on.
Then do some pronunciation exercises for Wasabi.jpn pronunciation lessons which I can plan on spending 5-10 minutes on.
For Anki- add words from the Japanese edition of Naruto and Koe no Katachi.
After I've finished the common 100 words deck then I hope to then switch over Clozemaster.


I think this should be manageable. I only using a couple of sites and these are activities that I don't find as a chore to do.

I have a mock speaking exam for French next week Tuesday.

[Sarafina]

After I've finished the common 100 words deck then I hope to then switch over Clozemaster.


I think this should be manageable. I only using a couple of sites and these are activities that I don't find as a chore to do.

I have a mock speaking exam for French next week Tuesday.

I have checked out Clozemaster for Japanese and unless you are willing to pay for pro, I don't recommend using it. The grammar is all over the place and not for beginners. A bit after Clozemaster came out, he did have the sentences ordered by JLPT but now he put them behind a pay wall. Also not so sure on the vocabulary it teaches for 1 - 100. I dont know where he got this list of top 100 words but I'm not sure that 必要 would be in it. I doubt a beginner going to understand this sentence "何【なに】があったの" to mean "What happened?" when it's asking for u to pick "あっ". How about : "彼【かれ】は私【わたし】のことが好【す】きではないようだね。" Got both of these in under 20 sentences. Sure there are some simple grammar sentences here but unless you willing to ignore most of the sentences, you might want to check out Clozemaster's JLPT Fast Track to see if that is better.

Thank you for the warning. I think I'll stay away from Clozemaster for now. Instead I can create my own cloze sentences using a mixture of the Lesson Notes from Japanesepod101 and native material.

[Sarafina]

Extracting vocabulary is pretty straightforward from Haikyuu!! as the vocabulary comes with the hiragana reading. However extracting words from Terrace House is more difficult than I thought because it's on Netflix. There are no hiragana reading. So I have to write it up on a piece of paper first and I'm able to write it on the screen using Google Translate 'turn on handwriting' option. This is great as it helps to reinforce it and forces me to have somewhat legible writing in order for Google to recognise it. Then I use Jisho to find the meaning of each word and occasionally use the English subtitles to see how the words together are translated to.

For Renshuu since yesterday I'm added about 18 words already and reviewed them. I'm debating between having a massive list for all the unknown words for Terrace House and Haikyuu. Or splitting it to smaller numerous lists which have 30 words. For Terrace House and Haikyuu I am not isolating phrases by phrases but rather by each individual words.

My Anki deck is better suited for reviewing full on Japanese sentences. Extracting the sentences from Naruto and Koe no Katachi will require a longer process using the steps I described at the beginning. For this I decided to I'll mine sentences from Koe No Katachi at a later date. Instead use the phrases from Japanesepod101 lesson notes (which is ridiculously easy and straightforward to extract) and Naruto and maybe Yotsubato! which uses much easier and common words.

This weekend I'll come up with some milestones I want to achieve. I know my overall end goal and I have resources which serve a particular and known purpose but I need to break it down into mini missions so I can't feel like I'm ploughing through those resources mindlessly.

[Sarafina]

My Excel French Timetable/Objectives has made me realise how little time I spend on French than I think I do. I complain about my listening skills when I'm averaging on 30 minutes of pure focused French listening then some days I'll spend more than 2 hours. It makes sense why I'm not progressing as much I want when I am not actually putting in the time needed.

[Sarafina]

I did the Korean Drama quiz and I got 14% which is cool considering I've never studied Korean before. I know a few words there and there from K-pop and watching some Korean You Tubers.
I did a Chinese Drama quiz and I got like 1%. It's interesting to see how we can pick up some words unconsciously. I was surprised that I was able to recognise a handful of Chinese words as a result of watching the hours binge-watching Chinese Bridge Competition ages ago.

[Sarafina]

I am unbelievably busy this weekend, I have so much work to do that I have procrastinated. Luckily I have a week of holidays coming up soon this Friday. I'm going to use this as a chance to really get back into an intense language schedule.

[Sarafina]

This week has been awful. I sleep at 7pm and then wake up at 2-3am to do some work and get ready for school. Raise and repeat. I am on half term now (I have a week of holidays). I'm planning on putting in at least 4 hours a day on French. My speaking exam is on the 23rd.

My plan to create a Quizlet of the key phrases that I want to use for each sub topics using my notes from school, my Italki lessons and French websites where I get cultural context and statistics. I've created a Word document on the 40 possible type of questions that they could ask me.

1. Create Quizlet set for each question (however for some I can merge into one)
1b) Create a Quizlet set for general phrases that is applicable to the discussion
1c) Create a Quizlet for phrases that will be useful for the description of the photo.
2. Review that Quizlet set x amount of time- the key thing for me is make sure that my pronunciation is the best it can be and remember those high-level phrases.
3. Record myself answering answering it and posting it on my log/Italki and to get feedback.
(I am planning on spending at least 2 hours repeating this process during my holiday)

I really need to get a 7 in this speaking exam. The exam is straightforward and the topics and potential questions are predictable and have been studied in advance. My biggest problem is to not to get carried away with trying to express complex ideas and butcher the French language in the process. And not to get flustered and let my nerves get the better of me.