So now that I got all excited about picking up my next new language Spanish, have been having a little bit of a philosophical problem since I know there is actually no way that I can juggle 3 languages at once (plus work and study). However eventually I decided to follow a few principles
1) study whatever language I feel like studying that day - not to stick to any rigid schedule - cos it would be stressful if I couldn't stick to it
2) to try (this isnt always successful) to stick to one language a day, so as not to confuse (esp between french and spanish). I haven't really stuck to this THAT well since sometimes I feel like listening to coffee break french on the way to work and doing a duolingo spanish lesson at night, haha. But it works out ok since French and Spanish actually has a very different... feel? And accent and cultures, so I don't really end up being thaat confused.
3) to find what I really want to do with each language and focus on what would make me happy with each language and tailor my study towards that
For instance, for Korean, I just want to be able to chat with Koreans, so chatting with my newfound korean friend on kakao talk makes me happy, don't really need to mug the grammar for now. (although I am a grammar nerd when it comes to Korean, I LOVE studying new Korean grammar, but actually i can communicate just fine on kakao talk without complicated intermediate grammar haha). For spanish, it's survival spanish so I can order coffee etc, so the spanish coffee break episode on ordering coffee makes me so happy!
For French- I actually want to join doctors without borders next time so I think I need a little more higher level French, not to mention medical french but for now the aim is just to immerse myself in it and listen to loads of french youtubes/ coffee break french etc. Will focus more on French (properly) after my Spain trip in Sept. The funny thing is there is alot of stuff on medical spanish but not much on medical french out there.
French- Duolingo 51/96
- finished all of season 1 of coffee break french, currently on about ep 4 and 5 of season 2!
- really really enjoying the Easy Languages on youtube! They have both French/ Spanish and loads of other languages. It's a light listen and also trains the listening skills, learnt loads of new vocab too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb4zvZdrMz4- I really really wanted to book an italki lesson with Lea my french teacher, she is SO awesome, but the scheduling didn't work out
maybe see how my next posting goes.
Spanish- up to lesson 10 with Assimil with ease!
- booked a lesson with an italki tutor - scheduled for this sat. Looking forward to it! I'm aiming to have a lesson every Saturday til I fly off to Spain, so that would be about 3 months of once a week lessons? Actually not sure how it's going to turn out since I'm honestly still a beginner at Spanish, and italki is actually better for sort of conversations? Once you can actually speak in the language? But trying to get myself up to speed between now and then and let's see how much of a conversation I can hold! Kind of a challenge for myself.
- getting tempted by FSI spanish too, reading loads of reviews... haha
- 12/ 113 on Duolingo
- aiming to finish the duolingo tree before sept 2018
Korean - not much official studying. watching korean dramas, chatting with a korean frend on kakaotalk (met her on italki!)
So in summary, loads of bits and pieces here, but at least I'm focusing on the parts of the languages that make me happy! Haha.
The next few months are going to be busy, I'm going to try to focus on survival spanish, aim is to be able to have simple conversations in spain in september, the more I understand the more fun the trip will be I think haha. Just going to maintain my french and korean and study randomly, but hopefully oct-december I can finish french assimil with ease?
:) Has anyone here walked the camino before? I'm also really excited to meet people and hopefully converse in my (limited) Korean and French haha
