French, Japanese and Who Knows What Else

[Sarafina]

I discovered this site a couple of weeks ago. It has been a valuable discovery. I have decided to become an active participant instead of just lurking around. I study the IB in England.

Long Term(ish) Goals

2017/2018/2019

French
June 2018- C1 in French (to either be able to confidently sit the C1 exam or get an unofficial assessment by professional French teacher with experience with the DALF)
-To sit the C1 exam by March 2019 (and maybe sit the B2 exam in December this year).
-To have -To have read 50-100 books in French/(which ever (I read books really fast as in on average it takes me a day or two to finish reading a book in English however in French it may take me up to a week or two if it's really challenging)
-To have written 223 pages in French (which includes diary entries, philosophical musings or rambles, responses to certain writing tasks)
-To have 50-100 conversations in French (I only count the time that I actually speak French and it needs to add up to at least 50 hours) and 50 hours worth of me recorded myself speaking French
-To get a 7 in HL French/To have answered and marked and read 144 IB HL French texts (in Paper 1 we have 4 texts titled Text A, B, C, D in a single paper and I have about 34-36 Paper 1

Japanese
No set deadline yet but ideally around July/August 2018-
In terms of reading:To able to read Koe no Katachi and understanding majority of the words. Being able to read stories such as Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata without being overly reliant on a dictionary.
In terms of listening comprehension: It would wonderful to be able to re-watch Departures and understand most of it without English subtitles but I think don't know if it is too ambitious considering that limited number of hours I can honestly dedicate to Japanese.
But I would be delighted by able to understand an episode of Haikyuu without relying on subtitles. I would be even happier to be able to watch and understand a Studio Ghibli film such as Spirited Away or Arrietty although fantasy related vocabulary it might provide to be challenging.
I love Mamoru Hosoda's works particularly Wolf Children and Girl Who Leapt Through Time. His next film is said to be completed around May 2018 (but the official release of the film hasn't been specified). What a way to celebrate my efforts in learning Japanese than to try to watch his next film in Japanese. If it wasn't so late, I might be rambled about how symbolic it would be of my Japanese learning journey.
For speaking: Around B1
For writing: I don't really care so if I need to write anything in Japanese- I'll type it. I don't really see the point on handwriting Japanese and I couldn't see myself using/practising this skill. If someone has a compelling as why I should learn to hand-write Japanese. I'm happy to listen.
To finish learning to learning pathways on Japanesepod101: Nihongodojo: Absolute Beginnner; Nihongodojo: Beginner; The Path to Advanced Japanese




To be able to pass a mock B2 exam in French by the end of December and I don't know if it would be worth paying £145 to sit the C1 exam. Although it might provide some incentive if I have already committed a considerable amount for sitting the exam. Regardless of whether I'm taking the official C1 exam next year, I would like to at a C1 level in my French by June 2018. I'm doing HL French in IB which apparently is of a level equivalent to B2 in French. It's important that I get a 7 in that.

Challenges/Experiments/Language Affairs

Korean (to start from the 20th June 2018-20th July 2018)
It is inspired by how Judith Meyer's 'Understand Your Favourite Show in 30 days' experiment. I'm hoping to replicate that instead using Korean and K-dramas, K-pop and some of my favourite Korean YouTubers except I'm also going to be supplementing with resources like Talk to Me in Korean or use 7 free period of Korean Class 101 to cram as much as I can. I'm planning on spending at least a total of 100 hours in 30 days on it: 20-30 hours on resources like Talk To Me in Korean, 20-30 hours on K-pop songs and lyrics, 20-30 hours on K-dramas, 15-20 hours on Korean YouTubers like Jaykeeout and Lily Petals World. This may also double up as part of the free and legal challenge.

Spanish (to start from 21st July 2018-21st July 2018)
I want to see how far I can get with 80-100 hours of the L-R method using Gabriel Garcia Marquez (who is one of my favourite writers). Which I may or may not want to supplement with 20-30 hours of FSI.
-Netflix challenge from undecided month in 2018)
Again similar to Judith Meyer's 'Understand Your Favourite Show in 30 days' experiment except using a Netflix TV series like Narcos and


Chinese (As soon as I start uni- I want to take advantage of the uni's language classes and resources). At some point I need to come up with a goal for it.

In the distant future

Persian
I want to learn Persian. It has such rich literature and history. Iran also have some interesting films that I'd love to watch. It would be wonderful to be fluent in a language that is spoken which has official language status in three countries in the Middle East. If I know Persian, it's easier to learn Arabic.

Brazilian Portuguese
I just love the sound of it. I can listen it all day and just love the rhythm and sound of the language. That are some interesting Brazilian YouTubers that I would love to be able to understand. I've liked some Brazilian movies and music in the past.


Hungarian
Is it weird that I wanted to learn Hungarian because of its national anthem? I've never heard it sang but I once read a short story which referenced the lyrics. I wanted to read more so I looked up the rest of the anthem. "Over the corpses of our defeated army. My favourite lines include:

"A victory song!
How often did your own son aggress
My homeland, upon your breast,
And you became because of your own sons
Your own sons' funeral urn!"

Or can be translated more poetic as:

"When in songs they did rejoice
O’er our heroes’ captured swords!
Yea, how often rose Thy sons,
My fair land, upon Thy sod,
And Thou gavest to these sons,
Tombs within the breast they trod!"

"Looking everywhere he could not find
His home in his homeland"

The last stanza of the anthem is really interesting. I won't push it because this is meant to be language blog not a Hungarian anthem appreciation blog.

I have my personal opinions on the Hungarian government. I don't know if I'll feel comfortable visiting there. But it's such a passionate and beautiful language. It would be nice to visit Budapest at some point in my lifetime.

Yoruba
Yoruba is technically my heritage language. I understand it with ease but I struggle to speak fluidly. At some point in the future it would be nice to able to debate politics in Yoruba.

[Sarafina]

Thank you for the link.

Because of the sheer amount of lessons, it can be difficult to know the best order to take.

[Sarafina]

Yesterday
I watched a couple of minutes of 10 jours en ors on Netflix but it's frustrating when the French subtitles don't watch the French audio.

I've written about 2 pages so far on what I want to say for my oral exam. I did some writing at school but I haven't counted how many words it is so far. Today I want to write the remaining 6-8 more pages. So that way I devote Friday to trying to memorise the key phrases. I'll create Quizlet set as opposed to an Anki deck because

I added some cards to Anki. I arranged a 30-60 minutes exchange. I spoke for 40 minutes but I probably only spend 15 -20 minutes speaking just French. She was nice to talk but she spoke mostly English but she was really helpful and corrected my mistakes.
I think I have found my right language partner: she is the same age as me, she's smart (she is studying Medicine) and she said that she is willing to speak to me everyday for at least one hour. My aim is consistently speak French as much as possible (at the very least 30 minutes of speaking pure French and not lapsing to English)

I should have kept a notebook with me to note down the corrections. I will do that next time.
I've proposed that then time we should stick to just one language at a time and then alternate it every 15-20 minutes.

I watched a couple of videos from Golden Moustache and Squeezie. I really like and I have consistently and successfully resisted the temptation to watch their videos with English subtitles.
I also watched another 7jours video and listened to it twice and noted down words I didn't know. But I still need added those words to Anki.

[Sarafina]

Sometimes I wonder when I'll able to say that I speak French of at least a B2 level. I can talk about a range of things but my pronunciation sucks and I have Tarzan-level grammar. When I speak it's like all the grammar rules I learnt just flies out. Looking back if I was to honestly count the amount of hours I spend actually speaking and noting the common mistakes I make then it makes sense why my speaking is the way it is.

By I stick to at least 30 minutes of speaking just French and create and regularly a deck on the feedback my language exchange partner gives. Coupled with significant amount of listening to French and trying to do some shadowing drills and record at least 10 minutes of myself reading something/talking about anything.
Hopefully I should see significant improvement.

[dampingwire]

Thank you for the link.

Because of the sheer amount of lessons, it can be difficult to know the best order to take.

I wouldn't worry about a best order. None of it is a waste of time, but some of the series are better than others. There's certainly no need to do Beginner 1 and then 2 and then 3 ...

The JPOD101 beginner stuff is relatively disorganised but it (mostly) gets better later on. When my subscription was active there was only one Upper Beginner series (there may be more now) and that one was very good. The Lower and Upper Intermediate series are all quite good. The Intermediate series is (iirc) one of the disorganised ones. The Advanced Audio blog seems (so far) to be all good.

Good luck!

[Sarafina]

I did my speaking today. It was a mess. I was too overconfident and I should have practice it a couple of times with native French speaker. C'est dommage.

I am going to have to modify my goals as it's apparent that it may have been too ambitious. Although I still believe it would been achievable if I wasn't busy revising for a dozen or so exams. I'll extend some of those goals
to 31th October.

This is my modified strategy (as there is no more speaking assessment or listening assessment as well)
1. Do 10 past papers
2. French B Textbook- Do 7 to 10 Reading comprehension tasks
3. Do at 100 sentences each day and spend at least 50 minutes just reviewing my Anki deck
4. Readlang 21 more articles
5. I have at least 24 writing tasks (complied from past papers) that I need to write 400 words for 20 of those writing tasks and 4 of them needs to be 150-250 words. For each one I need to submit to Lang-8 and really pay attention to the corrections given.
6. Reserve translation for David by J. M. G. Le Clézio (I don't know I'll be able to go through the whole story) as well as articles from Le Monde diplomatique
7. Using 'Complete French All-in-One' pg 187-191, 192, 197-207, 209-210, 221-224, 228-235, 239-241, 246, 250-252, 254, 268-272, 277-279, 283-284, 339, 391-392, 417-424,

[Sarafina]

Hey everyone.

Sorry for the overdue update. I have just finished my last mock exams. It has been a stressful two weeks. The French people was alright- the reading paper was decent. I felt proud about how much words I could understand however I need to work on my exam technique and interpretation of the questions.

I'm on holidays so it will be a productive language learning week and a half.

18/10/17 to 30/10/17
French

To have added 1,000 cards to Anki
To read 36 articles
50 hours of worth of concentrated listening
-To watch 22 episodes of Steven Universe in French
-To watch at least 12 videos of Golden Moustache
-To watch at least 12 videos of Squeezie
-To watch all 5 episodes of Timothée va à l'école
-To watch 6 episodes of Arthur
-To watch 7 episodes of Max et Ruby
-To watch 9 videos from the 'Coup de Phil' playlist by Cyrus North
-To watch 12 videos of 'Les Questions Cons' by Le Tatou
-To watch 6 videos of Ginger Force in the 'Adaption' playlist
-To watch 9 videos of the BULLSHIT-O-MÈTRE playlist
-To watch 7 videos D'Artagnan et les Trois Mousquetaires

I have created a playlist on YouTube that has more French media that is really aimed for children but they speak slower and don't use much slang and another playlist that has content that is of a faster speed and has more mature humour.

I am thinking of perhaps each day taking one video from each playlist and getting the transcription all laid out clearly and record myself reading it like its a script then compare it to the actual video and listening intently to the pronunciation and intonation of the speakers.

In an ideal world I wish I could spend at least 30 minutes to 1 hour worth of speaking everyday. I think I may be able to get at least 30 minutes of speaking practice every other day.
To have at least 4-7 Italki lessons
To repeat the dialogue from the dialogues en français playlist (at least 12 videos)

Do a page worth of grammar exercises each day
To write at least 5,000 words
Finish doing reserve translation of 'David'

Add all the more interesting/complex phrases I've learnt in class to Anki. I still have some of my phrases from last year and are hiding around.

[Sarafina]

Last night before I went to sleep, I read 5 articles and watched a couple of random French videos

Yesterday I watched two episodes of Steven Universe in French. I understood about 50-65% of it much to my disappointment.

At what point will I be able to understand 95%+ of it?

I've watched 2 Golden Moustache videos and 2 Squeezie videos. I've added the unknown words to Anki.

I was starting to watch this video titled L'Allégorie de la Caverne de Platon which is part of the 'Le Coup de Phil' by Cyrus North but then I got chased out of my room by a wasp.

To summarise 19/10/17
(So far)
6/36 articles
2/22 episodes of Steven Universe
2/12 Golden Moustache videos
2/12 Squeezie videos

I watched a funny video by Rire Jaune called 'Avoir deux cultures' which I enjoyed.

It's not a bad start however if I count the total number of minutes I've watched is 45 minutes. I am aiming for ideally 3 hours worth of listening but I am setting an absolute minimum of 1 hour.

[Sarafina]

Mini goals for today

-Read 6 articles
-Watch 2 episodes of Steven Universe (for one of them try to transcribe what you hear and keep repeating when you are unclear) (20 minutes worth of listening)
-(Hopefully to speak at least 30 minutes in French)
-Record myself reading the transcription of the clip Caillou et la poupée and La dernière volonté. If I'm feeling brave I might upload it on Vocaroo or maybe Soundcloud.
-Watch 100 cards to Anki
-Watch an episode of 'Timothée va à l'école' (24 minutes)
-Watch an episode of 'Arthur' (12 minutes)
-Watch 1-2 videos from the 'Coup de Phil' playlist by Cyrus North (5-10 minutes)
-Watch 1-2 videos of 'Les Questions Cons' by Le Tatou (3-6 minutes)
-Watch 1-3 videos from the BULLSHIT-O-MÈTRE playlist (5-15 minutes)
-Write at least 200 words to post to Lang-8
-Listen and read-along to at least 20 minutes L'Étranger audiobook

I need to come up with a solid grammar plan for this holiday beyond browsing aimlessly through a couple of chapters of my French grammar book.

I'm re-watching Stranger Things in French. Although it's jarring when the audio doesn't match up the French subtitles I can live with it.

Does anyone know any accurate transcription of Stranger Things in French? It would be much appreciated.

[Sarafina]

Watching Stranger Things boosted my confidence in my listening. I could understand the gist of what the characters were saying but I wonder if this confidence is misplaced as I have already watched the series in English before.

To make it less passive I am trying to transcribe what I hear.

The last two days were unproductive as I was out for majority of those days.