VeganBigMac's Log

[VeganBigMac]

I always right way too much in these things, so I will keep it short.

Why am I writing this log?

Feel kind of lonely in my language learning and want to share with others. Also to help keep me accountable.

What am I planning on doing?

Mostly just duolingo for now and watching Spanish youtube and netflix to maintain, perhaps enter into a few challenges here and there on the forum. However, when the next Super Challenge comes around, I'll be participating. If I do that challenge, it will probably be Spanish and French, with maybe a half challenge for either Japanese or German.

What languages are you learning/what level?

Spanish - Spanish is the only language that I've learned to any significant level. I'd say I read at a B2 level, but my speaking/listening skills aren't there. I can definitely feel the improvement though. A year ago I struggled to follow along to any JuegaGerman video on youtube, but now I watch his channel casually now.

French - I almost completed the duolingo branch for this one. Now I am trying to regold the old lessons before moving to new ones. Currently at 13/48 out of 78 lessons total. I'm going through only about 2 per day so this is going to be a long journey.

Japanese - This language is kind of weird, cause I obsessed over this language when I was a weeaboo, but I really didn't put much effort into actually learning it. So I know a lot of kanji, a decent amount of grammar, and common words, but have trouble reading basic sentences. Right now I'm going through the Japanese duolingo tree pretty quickly and so far its been all review (except a few new words here and there). Not really sure what I'll do afterwards though.

German - Have a personal connection to this language due to my family history. I haven't studied it too much, but have picked up pieces here and there. At my strongest was when I learned 400ish most common words on memrise. I'll probably do the duolingo tree once I finish Japanese.

Chinese - I've done a couple lessons on HelloChinese. This is almost entirely on the backburner.

[VeganBigMac]

Last few days have been simple. Been working through the duolingo trees for Japanese and French. Japanese seems to be pretty hard to maintain gold on, so I'm abandoning my previous rule of never doing new work without golding everything first. I'm just not going to make any progress otherwise. Still golding everything for french though since this is also serving as my review.

For French, I am now at 18/78 gold, so that's +5 from last post. Still have 30 until I catch up with where I was. Long road ahead.

For Japanese, just finished the second checkpoint so that puts me at 15/40. Much nicer journey.

Haven't really done anything for Spanish. Just a youtube video here and there.

I remembered today that textfugu exists. I might do that for Japanese once duolingo ends. I did it a bit before and liked the format.

[Stelle]

Welcome to the forum! You're now part of the LLORG collective.

[VeganBigMac]

Been able to work through 5 lessons in the past two days in french. Which puts me at 23/78 and just under halfway to catching up to where I was.

Worked through 2 more lessons of Japanese, putting me at 17/40. Keeping everything gold is still a problem, but I think I've got it under control now.

I found some site called lingvist so I've been testing it out. German isn't one of my active languages so not doing anything serious, but I like the site so far.

Looked back into textfugu. Didn't remember it being so expensive, and it looks like they've stopped updating it in favor of their other project. So I might look elsewhere for something after duolingo.

[VeganBigMac]

French Duolingo: 27/78
Japanese Duolingo: 18/40

48 is starting to seem a lot closer. Almost all caught up. Also, should be making a bit more progress now becaaaaause:

I'm deciding to restructure the way I'm learning these languages. I've decided that I want to have 3 "main languages" that I'm working on. A passive language, an active language, and a toy language.

The passive language is a language that I've already learned the grammar/common vocab to (i.e. Spanish). This means I can use native resources to practice. So I will be doing that. I will have some structure to it, though I'm still testing it out to see what works. I'm thinking of having a collection of things that I can work on that I can choose to do 2-3 per day. So right now, I'm reading 5 news articles a day and watching at least 2 youtube videos a day. I want to add more options to that, like watching an episode of a tv show, reading x pages of a book, etc. Going to experiment with what feels like a good balance of easiness, maintainability, and, of course, benefit.

Active language is going to be French. This is the language I focus on first. The language I study like, well, anybody studies their most active language. By practicing vocab, learning grammar, and of course (eventually) using native resources. Not much to explain for this. This is the language that comes first, so if I can only focus on one language some day, I focus on French.

Last is my toy language, Japanese. This is just to help me not get burned out. Just a language I can use whenever I'm getting worn down by the other two languages. Basically a language I'm going through so slowly that it always satisfies the language bug. This also means that, I'm going to put in minimal effort. So, on duolingo, I'm going to keep things gold, but only add a new lesson when I'm either bored of Spanish and French or I have nothing else to do. If I do something like an anki deck, only do five cards a day, instead of 50. The point is to make this language as fun as possible, even if that means progress is extremely slow.

This also means that I'm going to drop my casual German and Chinese practice. I want to avoid getting burned out and spending all my free time doing different languages is going to do that quick.

[VeganBigMac]

French Duolingo Lessons: 35/78
French Lingvist Words: 283/5000

So yeah, focusing on French has really speed things up. I've done 8 lessons in the past two days. Only 13 more until I'm back to where I was. I'm really liking the way I've changed my outlook on how I'm learning these languages. I've really been digging into French, without a worry I'm spending too much time on it. I've also started to really expand my interests in Spanish media. By forcing myself to actually use it every day, I'm starting to find more things I really enjoy. I haven't actually touched Japanese since two days ago. I am not allowing myself to touch it unless I am legitimately bored, and that hasn't happened yet.

I've also started to do the French Lingvist deck as you might have been able to tell from above. I was really impressed when experimenting with the site in German, and since duolingo doesn't really give you a large vocab, I think lingvist will be able to supplement that side of things. I've also ordered a book called "English Grammar for French Students". I've heard good things about the book and like how it seems to be formated, so I will be reading it to reinforce my grammar after duolingo. Long term, after completing this trifecta (duo, lingvist, grammar book), I want to move into some basic native materials, though I'll have to see where I am when I finish the three.

Lastly, I've started using "Habitica". I really want to reinforce for myself that these language learning tasks just need to be daily habits rather than something I'm actively trying to do, and the site gamifies this process. Let's see how it goes.

The tasks I have set for habitica are these each day:
-100 French Lingvist Cards
-Keep all previous French lessons gold on duolingo
-2 new French lessons on duolingo
-Read 5 articles in Spanish
-Watch 30 minutes of Spanish media

[VeganBigMac]

French Duo: 43/78
French Lingvist: 545/5000

What an interesting two days it has been. First things first, habitica is a massive success. I've further set it up so that I have habits on top of my dailies. My dailies are what they sound like, the minimum practice for that day. They habits, however, are anything extra that I do. So I have one for doing an extra duolingo lesson, an extra 100 lingvist cards, etc. The gamification has not only helped me make sure I make my daily goals, it has also given me an organized way to surpass them and also a way to organize my time. I'm really liking it.

As you can probably tell, I've put in a lot of work in Duo and Lingvist. 8 duolingo lessons in the past 2 days and 262 new cards (so about 600 cars reviewed in 2 days). Getting close to the end of the review has really been pushing me forward the past few days. Once I get to lesson 48 (which I should get in the next day or two), I'll probably go back down to 2 per day. But for now, I'm pushing onwards. Lingvist I will definitely have to slow down a bit. Only about 1/5 of my cards today were new cards. The reviews are building up fast. Luckily, its a site where you can go to it throughout the day to review things so there is a less daunting buildup than, say, anki.

My grammar book came in. Not going to actually start reading it until I finish duolingo, but after a quick skim, I am really liking how it is set up, and there are a lot more concepts than I thought would be in it.

One of my biggest French problems right now is pronunciation. I am thinking of getting an italki tutor specifically for weekly/biweekly pronunciation lessons, at least until I get to a decent level. Not interested (right now) about having a near native level, but I want to know all of the rules, and reading wikipedia articles about it isn't cutting it.

Nothing interesting to report in Spanish. Finding some more web site with articles I like to read. Not going to share them, because they are mostly political and don't want to introduce my politics onto my log. But I did find an art site called Neomexicanismos that has really interesting articles about the mexican art scene. For my media practice, I've been watching a Let's Play in Spanish on youtube. Pretty fun.

[VeganBigMac]

French Duo: 50/78
French Lingvist: 800/5000

Yes, you read that duolingo number right. I have finally caught up to where I was. Finally in new territory. And boy does it feel weird to be doing lessons rather than reviewing than reviewing units. It is definitely slower, but far less frustrating as each word is introduced gently. If I stay on track, I should be done with duolingo in about two weeks!

100-200 cards a day on lingvist is a pretty good pace. I'm getting enough new cards that it feels like I'm learning, but keeping the reviews low enough that it doesn't feel like all I'm doing is reviewing.

On a more abstract level, I can definitely feel myself getting used to French as a language. Negations don't really require as much active thought and I'm starting to do a lot of the contractions without even thinking about it. Verbs are still haven't quite clicked like that yet, though.

Nothing to report on for Spanish. Almost done with that lets play. Will probably look for more let's plays afterwards. I think it works well for media practice. I'm thinking of starting to make my reading practice be an option between reading articles and reading x pages in a book. But, I'll have to see how many pages exactly should be the goal - and I'll have to work on that next week because:

I will be up in LA this weekend and will be quite busy. Not sure how I'm going to fit in my practice. I'm internally debating how I should go about this. On one hand, I don't want to overdue it and burn out. On the other hand, I don't think I've been on my schedule long enough that the habits have truly formed so I don't want to lose that progress. We'll see what happens.

[Brun Ugle]

For learning the rules of French pronunciation, you might want to try the FSI French Phonology course. It might be a bit boring, but it's a nice foundation.

[VeganBigMac]

For learning the rules of French pronunciation, you might want to try the FSI French Phonology course. It might be a bit boring, but it's a nice foundation.

Wow, this is such an excellent resources. I've known about the FSI languages for years, but never actually looked at them closely. I really like this.