A Polymath Focuses on Japanese, 2019

[Xenops]

Disclaimer: as a common ailment amongst language learning enthusiasts, the lack of focus on studying one language at a time and the tendency to "wanderlust", or thinking that studying X language will somehow bring Heaven to Earth when studying languages A through Y failed to do so, the writer of this log acknowledges that she too, is susceptible to such a malady. She therefore warns future readers that the opening post of said log may not reflect the current learning goals of said writer. To see the current goals, it is advised to turn to the latest update on the log.

Thank you.




Bonjour!
Well, new year, new log. Hopefully this will be more focused, and not wander off to Dutch, Dari, or what have you.

Look, a butterfly!

Goals

1. Finish French in Action. I got through 2-7 last year, and had many interruptions (school, moving across the country, work). Currently I’m plugging the audio from these chapters into special Anki cards, also some writing practice.
2. Finish Genki book and workbook. I took a year of Japanese in college 4-5 years ago, and we got to chapter 9. Currently I’m taking the audio and putting these into Anki cards, and doing the chapter exercises.
3. Complete Let’s Learn Kanji! book and know all 200+ radicals that make up the kanji. I have the へん ones down, currently working on つくりand かしら。I hand write these, and also put them in standard Anki flash cards. On hold

Methods
For my recipe for making a Special Cloze cards on Anki, see this post: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3897&start=170#p89728
See this post about how to extract audio from a website: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 077#p75060

I will do the exercises in the textbook by handwriting, and take the applicable audio and make Special Cloze cards.

Materials

[aravinda]

Bon courage!
This reminds me I too have an Assimil French with Ease to finish (or rather start all over again) and a set of FiA books to start!
And I like les bandes dessinées too. A great name for your new log considering you draw comics yourself. It made me go and check on la bande desinée versus les bandes desinées. It's much more complicated than I thought, as discussed here.

...
Well, new year, new log. Hopefully this will be more focused, and not wander off to Dutch, Dari, or what have you.

Look, a butterfly!

...

[Xenops]

Bon courage!
This reminds me I too have an Assimil French with Ease to finish (or rather start all over again) and a set of FiA books to start!
And I like les bandes dessinées too. A great name for your new log considering you draw comics yourself. It made me go and check on la bande desinée versus les bandes desinées. It's much more complicated than I thought, as discussed here.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm reviewing both, as I didn't give French enough quality time last year.

Oh dear, I wasn't aware of nuances! I better check on that link.

[Xenops]

Today I practiced writing some of the へん(偏) bushu or kanji radicals, as I like writing by hand to remember the stroke order. In the East Languages group, there is a challenge to pick a number of vocab, kanji or whatnot and complete it for January. I'm contemplating doing it for the radicals, of which there are 206~ total. I also made Anki cards of the　つくり (旁), and I should move on to the　かんむり (冠)　tomorrow. On forvo there is a nice list of the bushu, if you want to add the sound: https://forvo.com/tag/bushu_name/alphabetically/

I made Special Cloze cards from French in Action audio, from chapter 6. I'm almost back to where I left off last year in chapter 8. Yesterday I did some writing exercises from chapter 5.

Yesterday I worked out exercises from the Genki book, but didn't get to that today.

[Xenops]

I am not sure what happened. Lately I have been reading the discussion posts of learning a Romance language, and having the disappointment of the native speakers using English instead. I found myself praying if I should learn French, and if it was a worthwhile endeavor.

The last few days my interest in Japanese has waned, and my interest in French has increased. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? But I will take this opportunity and run with it. I had considered naming my log "the Polymath's Dilemma", as there are many things I want to accomplish, and not enough time to do them. If I can put Japanese on the back burner for a while, then life gets suddenly easier.

The last couple of days I have watched the French in Action videos for chapter 6, 7, and 8, and doing some of the written exercises and repeating after the audio. I want to finish my review and consolidation of this material by the end of the month, and finish up chapter 8, where I had left off when I was going through my initial streak in the course. I also meet with the tutor once a week to work on pronunciation.

If I find myself suffering wanderlust, I will pick up Japanese again.

[Xenops]

Strangely enough, the desire to focus on French has continued. I consider this a God-send: I was afraid that I would always be in the learning stage of any given language, and not go any further.

My initial goal was to put all of the applicable audio of chapters 6 and 7 of French in Action into Anki cards before moving back to studying chapter 8, where I last left off. I decided against this tactic: I can only stand do make so many Anki cards a day. So I'll pick some from chapter 6 and 7 on any given day, and then move on to the "traditional" way to study chapter 8 as the course directs. As I do the course exercises, I'll continue to create a few new Anki cards each day, and this will act as my review of older topics and words.

It's been recommended to find material in your target language to read, and since I have been curious about European fashion again, I found a lovely fashion blog that's written in English and French! The only improvement would be if they were parallel texts.

https://www.pardonmyobsession.com

Last month I also discovered a band that's surprisingly addictive. Of course it's an indie band, and my Québécoise tutor has not heard of it. I primarily look for indie bands in English, so it's no surprise that I would like this one. I just need to know what they are saying.



I also need to look through sctroyenne's log for other music ideas.

[MamaPata]

Ooh, the idea of the polymath's dilemma definitely resonates with me! (Though I don't know if I'd consider myself a polymath.) I love all of the support on this forum, but sometimes when I see comments, I can't help but think "but I want to do so many things beside languages!". There's so much history to learn, so many books to read, sports to try, museums to see! Obviously, particularly as you improve, you can study history, read books, watch films, in the languages you are studying (and I do). But also, there are books I want to read in English because the language used is so essential to it (or because particularly history books are so well recomended/accessible), yada yada. I imagine it's the same with your comics - sometimes you have to make the choice about what to focus on!

Why is the world so interesting?!

[Xenops]

I decided to change the log title from Bande dessinée, 漫画, 2018 to A Polymath's Dilemma, 2018, partly because I'm focusing on French now, and putting Japanese on the back burner for the time being, and because as MamaPata can relate, there are many things I want to tackle, like comics, painting, world building, working on my own constructed language, possibly learning HTML and how to film and edit videos, etc. The dilemma is what to focus on at any given time.

From January 22nd to today so far, this is what French studying I have been doing:

Met with tutor for 1 hour
Pimsleur Level 1 units 6-11
Assimil French With Ease leçon 5
French in Action workbook 8.1 through 8.33
Added over 100 Anki cards (if I'm reading my stats correctly?), and reviewing them every other day on average. The content is mostly from FiA.

I really wanted to finish chapter 8 this past week, but I can only do so many writing exercises at a time. Hopefully I'll finish it today or tomorrow.

[Xenops]

From January 29th to today, February 7th, this is what I have accomplished so far:

French in Action workbook 8.34-8.42
French in Action workbook 9.1-9.41
French in Action chapter 7 and 8 audio review
Pimsleur level 1 unit 12
No adding of Anki cards, but I did do regular reviews.

I remember having a conversation with my cousin, who learned German, Spanish and French to various levels, and her comment that French made the least amount of logical sense. After being biased and spoiled with Spanish and Japanese, I can agree with her. Why is it votre for singular and vos for plural, when in Spanish it is vuestro, vuesta, vuestros and vuestras? Who knows. David J. Peterson made the comment on the Conlangery podcast that if any natural language could be mistaken for a constructed language, it would be Spanish.

Despite this, I feel like the pieces of the French puzzle are fitting to together in my mind. For a while I felt like I was wallowing in bunches of different pieces with no order (what on earth is "leurs"? "Eux"? "Vos"?)

Chapter 9 of FiA definitely had a more solemn tone compared to other chapters. I was also surprised that we no longer have classroom scenes (I miss Mr. Wise Guy, as the study guide calls him). It bothered me that Georges makes fun of Marie-Laure, and then is called gallant when he complements their mother. Perhaps she deserved the treatment: but I find myself more sympathetic towards her than not (we are both saved-the-best-for-lasts, after all).

I also found a neat find at the used bookstore:


While the book is from 2012, and I could probably find everything that I would need on the Internet, I prefer hardcopies when I can, and this will serve as a primer as to what to expect when I get to that point.

I also need to update my progress bars!

[Elenia]

My guess it's probably to do with spelling change: 'votre' would have been 'vostre' in Middle and Old French, and it would have had a much clearer relation to 'vos'. Old French had a lot more 's's than modern French does, most (if not all, but I'm not sure so don't quote me on this!) before 't's. If I remember correctly, they were all silent. And now I'm guessing completely, but I'm pretty sure they would have all been leftovers from Latin.