READING HARRY POTTER IS SO MUCH FUN. An hour of reading feels like 20 minutes!
I wanted to do a more thorough update about French, since I've had a productive and interesting week.
Sometime in the last month, I stopped chorusing Assimil. The lessons are continuing to challenge my listening comprehension, sometimes to the point of frustration. I'm on lesson 80. There have been several days that I've wanted to take a break from Assimil, but Assimil is truly the core of my French study because it challenges me every single day. I will not quit until the book is finished. So I'm back to looping sections of audio in Audacity and repeating them back 10-20 times, but now I can now loop longer sections without losing any accuracy. It's nice to notice improvement there. Chorusing helps with speaking practice, but it also assists with listening comprehension and retaining information. When I'm doing the Active Wave (translating from L1 to L2), I can immediately tell which lessons I chorused. They are way easier for me to translate, and I can hear the French in my head as I'm reading the English translation.
I'm starting to notice areas of difficulty in French where I like to tell myself, "I can't really do that yet. Too bad, I'm sure I will work on that later." That mindset isn't really conducive to getting over learning blocks, so I'm trying to push myself. If I don't know how to say a simple sentence like, "How long have you been doing that?" or if I need to work on my pronunciation of a specific word, I put it on a list. I'm collecting quite a list of things to do, learn and use. When I have some free time, I spend about 30 minutes working on some of the concepts in the list, either on my own or with a French friend. Of course, this ends with me adding even more things to the list. It's never-ending, but I really enjoy learning this way!
Speaking of production, I've been on the hunt for French natives who I can speak with either over the phone or through audio messages. I seem to have the best luck on websites like Conversation Exchange and on Reddit. A couple weeks ago I gave up on language exchange apps like HelloTalk, because I just don't have time or energy to navigate the trolls, duds, and the lackadaisical learners. This has to be one of the most frustrating parts of learning a language. Anyway, I managed to find another French native who is an English teacher in Paris. She's enthusiastic, very friendly, and she's about my age -- so I have great hope that she'll stick around.
Okay, so... this isn't really about French, but it relates to productivity and learning. I think I need a productivity app like Todoist, 3 Things, or Notion. Whenever I've tried to use apps like that in the past, I've quickly become overwhelmed by the amount of set-up they require, and I revert back to Calendar and Notes after a couple days. However, I want to get over that initial learning curve because I'm considering starting college within the next year. I want to be comfortable with a productivity app before I get really busy.
Oh, one other thing. Apparently in French I can't say "Mon chat est orange", I have to say "Mon chat est roux". I'm told, however, that it's very cute when I say my cat is orange.