Well, it was a pretty good week for me. It was Thanksgiving week so I had some extra time. French took the forefront this week (more on that later).
Spanish:
I watched a few more episodes of Los Miserables. I stopped at episode 80. I'll take some time off for a while. Eventually I'll finish it, but right now I want to take a break. It is still a great show and is quite interesting, but I can only handle so much screen time. I must say that the "evil twin" sub-plot is not as stupid as it seems. Some of the sub-plots are getting a bit unbelievable, but, nevertheless, it is fun to follow.
I have started Agatha Christie's El Asesinato de Rogelio Ackroyd. I like this type of book very much. It is interesting and easy. It is short enough that I can read for a few hours and feel like I am making a good dent on the book. It is easy enough that I can read it in the evening and it is not too much "work" for my tired brain. I actually find it somewhat relaxing. I have read seven chapters now. If I don't know a word I just skip it and keep moving. I am impressed with my Spanish because I can notice which words are "old" words that would not be used in modern day writing. I bought the book at a flea market on the street in Mexico City for the equivalent of about $0.30 or $0.40 so there is some sort of joy in reading it. I remember being quite pleased when I found this book (and a few Perry Mason books) on that street. I was actually successful in negotiating down the price.
I had a wonderful talk with a new Spanish speaking customer this week. I felt like a superhero. This time I actually am going to get some financial gain as this guy will become a good paying customer and I can honestly say that my Spanish has now officially made me some money. As I add up all the hours I spent on learning the language it, of course, has not yet been "worth it" financially. That being said, if I exclude my trips I think the profit I will make from this new customer will easily pay for all of the other resources I have purchased over the last six years. I realized that my Spanish is basically as good as it needs to be to do my job. I don't necessarily need to study or use my Spanish more... what would help would be to just use my Spanish much more with Spanish speaking customers. That will, hopefully, come with time. I am not kidding myself, Spanish is not going to make a major impact on my business in the near future... but it is fun! In the long term I do think it could really make a difference for my business, but I'm not going to worry about it for now.
French:
Wow! Right now I am really pumped up about French. I have long had a desire to "know" French but getting the desire to actually put in the time to learn it has been tough. My reasons for knowing French are more personal and less practical than my reasons for knowing Spanish. Now that my Spanish is pretty solid I don't mind taking a bit of time away from Spanish and putting it into French.
This week I completed Assimil up until lesson 21. I am going to stop there. My first real goal is to be able to read novels in French. It has been strongly recommended to me to do at least some work with something like Assimil to make sure I understand the pronunciation. I think that was good advice. I'm going to stop now and just focus on reading.
I am now working with French for Reading by Sandberg and Tatham. Wow! This is a great course. I have put a couple hours into it each day for the last four days. I have completed the first six chapters (out of 21). I am on page 113 (out of 489). Maybe I will prove myself wrong, but this seems like the "magic pill" for me right now. It breaks down the issues (grammar, vocab, conjugation, etc) into little concepts and then "drills" them with readings of phrases or short sentences. It basically states the grammar or vocab issue up front and then you get a series of very short phrases in French. You decipher the meaning of the French phrase and translate them into English. Then you check your translation against the English. They are perfectly sized "bite sized" chunks of French. They all work toward a common goal (the reading at the end of the chapter) and the drills work in previously learned vocab and grammar. He basically gives you tons of "comprehensible input" in carefully organized bite sized chunks as a way of teaching you.
I bought a used book which at first was a bit annoying because the previous owner wrote in many of the answers and circled all the words he/she did not know. I soon liked it because I seem to be doing much better than the previous owner. That gives me a confidence boost. I also note that the previous owner seems to have stopped using the book right about where I am now. I can see how this could get overwhelming because it is quite a bit of work. I am definitely going to continue because I can see how this course is really going to get me to a competent reading level very fast.
I think I was underestimating how much my Spanish is going to help with French. It is unbelievably helpful as there are so many cognates and also many of the ways you say things in French are the same in both Spanish and French. It is so simple to just say to myself... "ok, you just do that the same way you do that in French"... or "ok, that is the same word in French."
My current plan is to first finish French for Reading. Then, I'll hopefully be able to struggle through some basic books on my Kindle. I'd really like to read the remaining five books of the Alex Rider series. I really liked the first five books in Spanish and was a bit disappointed that the remaining five were never translated into Spanish. All ten are available in French on Kindle. When I finish French for Reading I'll hopefully be able to work on books like Alex Rider. I'm also eyeing the Bob Morane series which looks great. There are 120+ Bob Morane books available on Kindle. We'll see how my reading level is when I get there, but I think I'll have to work some of those into my French diet when I can read.
My basic plan is to tackle French much differently than Spanish. With French I'm just going to develop my reading skills as fast as possible and try to enjoy the language as fast as possible. I'll read until I feel quite comfortable (maybe a million words?) and then I'll re-assess the situation and decide what to do next. I am not going to worry at all about having conversations. I'm not even going to worry much about listening at this point either. When my reading gets advanced I'll probably then try to tackle listening and then, after that, I'll hopefully be able to make rapid progress into speaking. We'll see. The key is to have fun. I'm finally excited about French so I'm going to ride the wave as long as possible.