Long Term(ish) Goals
2017/2018/2019
French
-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.
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
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.