Humerusthings log: German & French Log through Assimil 2024

[humerusthings]

Spanish Learning Log
Spent most of today on Spanish (instead of being distracted by french or korean, so that's good!)
- Up to lesson 15 on Assimil. I'm currently just listening to the audio then writing down the dialog and reading the lesson notes
- At 240 words on duolingo
- memrise over breakfast, the course looks quite good actually
- Racing through kqwiz spanish, there's a ?7 day free trial for premium and it's actually really good!! Managed to cover about 70% of A0 and going through the A1 verbs now and writing them on notecards. Noticed a huge difference compared to the only 10 quizzes per month I got with french, haha.
- Sadly I only can have 2 languages on lang 8, so I wrote a notebook entry on italki and got 3 people enthusiastically correcting me, then got into a pm chat with someone from Spain who has walked the camino before and has loads of tips!

I think I read somewhere on this forum something about islands of language learning ie we gain vocab on areas we chat about most frequently/ are interested in and become quite ok with chatting in that realm - it's quite true I think. For me in Spanish, it would be obviously walking the Camino haha. But the language learning dream of being able to understand another language is sooo alluring that I don't mind learning all vocab even if it's unrelated.

Was thinking about how to maximise my future lack of time and still learn some spanish for fun - I think 1 or 2 lessons of Assimil per day would be great, and I could time myself to make sure it doesnt go over 30 mins or so. That way I can still work through a progressive book and learn something, and also it could be like an experiment to see the efficacy of Assimil alone (as opposed to scattershot Assimil + 100000 other random resources - which also incidentally, does tend to fry one's brain...haha)

[humerusthings]

So my traineeship has just started and I'll be really busy for the next 5 years haha. But here's the (small) amount of language learning I've been doing! Hoping to continue with italki lessons when I'm more acclimatised to the training program and have a bit more free time!

Spanish
- occasional duolingo
- spanish obsessed ep 3, 5,6, 16
- coffee break spanish 30

French
- Asssimil French with Ease 32-38
- Grammaire Progressive Du Francais Chapter 16

Korean
- mainly tv shows haha: What's Wrong with Secretary Kim 1 ep, Grandpas over Flowers (in Berlin) 1 ep
After watching Grandpas Over Flowers (a travel variety show), I felt so tempted to visit Germany and learn german!! Haha

Total words learned on Duolingo thus far
291 spanish words
1299 french words

I'm mainly keeping it light on the language front but now and then on subways I pull out my phone to do duolingo and sometimes on weekends like today to give myself a break I do some Assimil. Also consciously doing French and Spanish on different days if possible.

Very general aims
- To have 1-2 more spanish italki classes before going off to Spain in Sept 2018
- to finish Spanish duolingo before going off to Spain (if not, to spam duolingo in transit haha)
- to finish French duolingo by Dec 2018
- to have 1 French italki class per month from oct -dec 2018

[humerusthings]

This week's language learning:
Spanish
- Subway duolingo abt 3 out of 7 days
- Assimil 16 to 20
- grammar: por vs para (Kwiziq)

Korean
- Watched 4 eps of produce 48! Hearing both korean and japanese actually haha

French
Went for a medicine related course and met a French doctor so chatted a bit in French! Very standard intro like my name, where I work (the hospital where the course was held. Haha). It was fun although I realized I need to work on my French (both spoken and vocab).

[humerusthings]

Spanish
Subway duolingo 4 out of 7 days
2 easy spanish youtube videos (at the library, what did you want to be as a kid)

Korean
1 ep of Grandpas over Flowers
Korean Grammar In Use Intermediate - revised 2 grammar points and learnt a new one - ~지 그래요
TTMIK Iyagi Podcast on desserts

Am always amazed when I come back to Korean after some time away that I can still read Korean!

[humerusthings]

Continuing on the extremely slow progress haha
Spanish
- coffee break spanish level 1 ep 7 and 8 (on walk home)
- Duolingo 30/112, learned total 792 words on duolingo
- Pablo neruda's poems: 100 sonetos de amor - sonnet no 8 and 25
- Assmil Spanish with Ease 22 and 23

French
- very keen on this french school in the area called french toast since I went to a Doctors Without Borders Film Fest and the HR people told me I should start learning French now haha. BUT the schedule doesnt really fit my current schedule now so may have to wait for a bit...

[humerusthings]

Spanish update:
- revised Assimil lesson 22 and 23
- Assimil 24,25
- Coffee Break Spanish season 1 ep 32
- Duolingo 3/7 days, duolingo stories story 1 - puedes hablar

Also made this infographic on things I like to do with my (minimal) free time haha

[humerusthings]

Back on the language learning train!
Soooo the trip to spain did not happen (long story) and I shall pack up my spanish notebook for a little while - although I did enjoy learning the language!

It's probably a good thing in any case since I have tons of things to do anyway, PLUS it freed up some time for language learning (looking on the bright side). So I've been picking up French again

French
24/9/18
Italki lesson! With new French tutor M, she's quite bubbly and fun
Assimil - revised lesson 32, did lesson 33
3 Kwiziq quizzes + audio passage on une chargee journee
Coffee Break French S2 Lesson 5
Made more anki cards

And I have yet another italki lesson tomorrow, shld be fun. Hopefully can free up some time for french once a week..?
Realized I was SO rusty during the lesson today. I mean not that my French was that great, but I definitely could conjugate etre/ avoir/ aller once upon a time...

[humerusthings]

My log from now on will be quite French focused, so here goes

25/9/18
French made easy step by step chapter 1
Italki class (1st with P) 1st chapter of grammaire en dialogues

26/9/18
Revised Assmil (French) 33-38, 1st pass for 39-40

28/7/18
2nd italki class with P, 2nd and 3rd chapter of grammaire en dialogues

Again, I'm only able to have these italki classes as I'm on vacation now haha. It's tricky to have online classes during normal working weeks for me... but I will try if possible! Going back to the basics with French as I realized I actually never learnt all the grammar properly. Or rather I learnt it but it never really stuck with me. Going thru grammar with my new tutor P is really helping to consolidate all the grammar!

[Bunnychu]

You seem to have a nice schedule.^_^ If you don't mind me asking, what teacher are you using for French?

[humerusthings]

You seem to have a nice schedule.^_^ If you don't mind me asking, what teacher are you using for French?

Haha your schedule is really inspiring Bunnychu! I was only able to do this because I had a 1 week vacation from work.. it was a very rusty picking back up of French and revising really basic verbs during the italki lessons.

French italki teachers:
1) Pauline: https://www.italki.com/teacher/4068849
2) Melissa https://www.italki.com/teacher/3362517
Both are super nice and friendly, very patient with my very basic French, but I only had 2x lesson with Pauline and 1x trial lesson with Melissa so far. If I had more time, I definitely would have more. Melissa gives homework too so that's great!

Btw thanks for your list of korean italki teachers which helped me a lot!!

In case you're interested in Spanish teachers too:
Vicente is great! https://www.italki.com/teacher/4058552